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V 

Epochs o.f History. 

EDITED BY 

EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. 



rHE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK, 



JAMES GAIRDNER. 



THE HOUSES 



OF 



LANCASTER AND YORK 



WITH THE 



CONQUEST AND LOSS OF FRANCE 



BY 



JAMES GAIRDNER 



EDITOR OF 'THE P ASTON LETTERS ETC. 



IVITH FIVE MAfS<: 




BOSTON '^J^-.-^^: 
E S T E S AND L A U R I A T 

CHICAGO 
JAXSEX, McCLURG & CO. 

SAN FRA^XISCO 
PAYOT, UPHAM & CO. 

1^75 



JlPia.4 






•q-l^ 



PREFACE. 



For the period of English history treated in this 
volume, we are fortunate in possessing an unrivalled 
interpreter in our great dramatic poet, Shakspeare, 
A regular sequence of historical plays exhibits to us 
not only the general character of each successive 
reign, but nearly the whole chain of leading events, 
from the days of Richard IL to the death of Richard 
III. at Bosworth, Following the guidance of such a 
master mind, we realise for ourselves the men and 
actions of the period in a way we ca.nnot do in any 
other epoch. And this is the more important, as the 
age itself, especially towards the close, is one of the 
most obscure in English history. During the period 
of the Wars of the Roses we have, comparatively 
speaking, very few contemporary narratives of what 
took place, and anything like a general history of the 
times was not written till a much later date. But the 
doings of that stormy age — the sad calamities endured 
by kings — the sudden changes of fortune in great men 
— the ghtter of chivalry and the horrors of civil war. 



vi Preface, 

— all left a deep impression upon the mind of the 
nation, which was kept alive by vivid traditions of the 
past at the time that our great dramatist wrote. 
Hence, notwithstanding the scantiness of records 
and the meagreness of ancient chronicles, we have 
singularly little difficulty in understanding the spirit 
and character of the times. 

Shakspeare, however, made ample use besides, of 
whatever information he could obtain from written 
histories. And there were two works to which he 
was mainly indebted, which deserve to be read more 
generally than they are at the present day— the 
Chronicles, namely, of Hall and Holinshed. Hall's 
Chronicle was written in the reign of Henry VIII., 
and gives a complete account of the whole sequence 
of events from the last days of King Richard II. to 
the time in which the author wote. The title of the 
work prefixed to it by himself, or possibly by his 
printer Grafton who completed it, was ' The Union 
of the Two Noble and Illustrate Families of Lancastre 
and Yorke.'i This expresses exactly the general 
scope of the book, which traces out very clearly the 

1 The full title is as follows :— ' The Union of the two Noble and 
niustrate Families of Lancaster and York being long in continual 
dissension for the crown of this noble realm, with all the acts done 
in both the times of the Princes, both of the one hneage and of the 
other, beginning at the time of King Henry the Fourth, the first 
author of this division, and so successively proceeding to the reign 
of the high and prudent prince King Henry the Eighth, the in- 
dubitate flower and very heir of both the said Hneages/ 



Preface. vii 

story of each separate reign, first of the one family 
and afterwards of the other, winding up with a narra- 
tive of the reign of Henry VIII., in whom the blood 
of both Houses was mingled. The style of Hall, 
though antiquated, is remarkably clear, graphic, and 
interesting. The headings that he has prefixed to the 
several reigns are in themselves no small help to the 
student to remember their general character. The 
book is divided into the following chapters : — 

'An Introduction into the Division of the Two Houses of 
•Lancaster and York. 

' I. The Unquiet Time of King Henry the Fourth. 
' n. The Victorious Acts of King Henry the Fifth. 
* HI. The Troublous Season of King Henry the Sixth. 
' IV. The Prosperous Reign of King Edward the Fourth. 
' V. The Pitiful Life of King Edward the Fifth. 
'VI. The Tragical Doings of King Richard the Third. 
'VII. The PoUtic Governance of King Henry the Seventh. 
'VIII. The Triumphant Reign of King Henry the Eighth.' 

This table of contents is quite a history in little. 
The feeling with which Hall wrote is that of a 
man living under a * triumphant ' king, who, after a 
century of disorder and civil war occasioned by a 
disputed succession, had succeeded peacefully to the 
crown, uniting the claims of the two rival families in 
his own person and raising his country in the estima- 
tion of the whole world by his kingly valour. From 
the happy and prosperous days of Henry VIIL, — for 
such they were upon the whole, especially the early 
part of the reign, when Hall wrote — he looked back 



viii Preface, 

with the eye of an historian upon that epoch ot 
tragedy and confusion, and carefully collected all that 
he could find relating to it. In the beginning of the 
work he gives a list of the authorities he had consulted, 
among which there are one or two that cannot at this 
day be identified, and perhaps may not be now 
extant. 

On the whole, those who desire to obtain a clear 
impression of the history of this period cannot do 
better than read the Chronicle of Hall, of which it is 
greatly to be desired that some more handy and con- 
venient edition were published for general use. It is, 
however, for the most part accessible in public 
libraries, either in the original black-letter edition or 
in that of Sir Henry ElHs. 

The later Chronicles of Stow and Holinshed, pub- 
lished during the latter part of the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth, add many important particulars not to be found 
in Hall. John Stow was a most industrious antiquary, 
who spent the greater portion of his life in collecting 
and taking notes from MSS., and in his Chronicle, or, 
as he himself calls it, his ' Annals,' he gives the fruit 
of his gleanings, not in a connected narrative but in a 
record of events from year to year, as the name of the 
work implies. The work of Hohnshed, on the other 
hand, is called on the title-page a Chronicle, but is, 
in fact, a regular history, embodying the substance of 



Preface, ix 

HalFs narrative, sometimes nearly in the words of 
the earlier writer, with a great deal that is contained 
in Stow and a large amount of additional information 
from other sources. 

Modern writers have not improved upon these 
admirable works in extent or fulness of information, 
though they have undoubtedly brought criticism to 
bear on many points of detail. Of popular histories 
written in recent times, Lingard^s is upon the whole 
the most careful and trustworthy ; but any one desiring 
really to study the period can only refer to such 
works as a help to rectify and to test the accuracy of 
his own judgments after saturating his mind with the 
perusal of earHer authorities. Those who have not an 
opportunity of referring to Hall or Holinshed, would 
do well not to take their whole view of the history 
from any one historian, however accurate he may be, 
but to jot down the simple facts for themselves, com- 
paring one writer with another to ensure accuracy, and 
from them form their own conclusions. 

If, however, it be desired to examine the original 
sources from which information about the period is 
obtained, the student must of course go to earlier 
writings even than Hall's Chronicle. He must 
examine the authorities used by Hall himself, and a 
number of other chronicles and narratives besides, 
many of which have been only published in compara- 



X Preface, 

tively recent times. Of these works it would be un- 
necessary here to give a list ; but it is right to say 
that the present volume has been written from a direct 
study of all the contemporary testimony that exists 
relative to the events of each particular reign. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 
PRELIMINARY .... I 

CHAPTER n. 

RICHARD II. 

I. The French War — Wycliffe and John of Gaunt . . 4 

n. Wat Tyler's Rebellion 12 

in. The Crusade in Flanders. Invasion of Scotland. The 

King's Favourites 19 

IV. Revolution and Counter-Revolution .... 25 
V. The Struggle Continued. The Wonderful Parliament 

— The King of age 30 

VI. The King and the Duke of Gloucester .... 37 

VII. The Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk .... 42 

VIII. The King and Henry of Lancaster .... 48 

CHAPTER III. 

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE ... 59 

CHAPTER IV. 

HENRY IV. 

1. The Revolution completed. Invasion of Scotland . . 64 
II. Eastern Affairs ........ 69 

III. Owen Glendower's Rebellion and the Battle of Shrews- 

bury 72 

IV. Capture of Prince James of Scotland . . , . yQ 

V. The Church. French Affairs. Death of Henrv IV, . 82 



xii Co7ite7tts, 



CHAPTER V. 

HENRY V. 

PAGE 

I. Oldcastle and the Lollards 86 

II. The War with France and the Battle of Agincourt . . 92 
III. The Emperor Sigismund. Henry Invades France a 
Second Time. The Foul Raid. Execution of Old- 
castle 99 

IV. Siege and Capture of Rouen. Murder of the Duke of 

Burgundy. Treaty of Troyes 104 

V. Henry's Third Invasion of France. His Death. . . 109 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND THE WAR IN BOHEMIA II3 

CHAPTER VII. 

HENRY VI. 

I. The King's Minority and the French War . . .123 

II. The Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc .... 127 

III. Gloucester and Beaufort. Negotiations for Peace . 134 

IV. The King's Marriage. Deaths of Gloucester and Beau- 

fort 140 

V. Loss of Normandy. Fall of the Duke of Suffolk . . 145 

VI. Jack Cade's Rebellion. Loss of Guienne and Gascony 149 

VII. The King's Illness. Civil War 155 

VIII. The Duke of York's Claim. His Death. Henry De- 
posed . . 161 

CHAPTER VIII. 

EDWARD IV. 

I. Triumph of the House of York 167 

II. Edward's Marriage. Louis XI 171 

III. The Burgundian Alliance. Warwick's Intrigues . 176 

IV. Edward driven out, and Henry VI. Restored . . 181 
V. Return of King Edward 185 



Contents. xiii 

PAGE 

VI. War with France 190 

VII. France and Burgundy 193 

VIII. Fate of Clarence. The Scotch War. Death of Edward 195 

CHAPTER IX. 

EDWARD V. .... 201 

CHAPTER X. 

RICHARD III. 

I. The Royal Progress. Murder of the Princes . . . 210 

II. The RebeUion of Buckingham 214 

III. Second Invasion of Richmond. Richard's Overthrow 

and Death 219 

CHAPTER XI. 

GENERAL VIEW OF EUROPEAN HISTORY . . 22/ 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONCLUSION .... 240 



Errata, 

Page 37, line 20, for Waynflete read Wykeham. 
,, 39, last line, ,, Edmund „ Edward. 



LIST OF MAPS. 



I. France at the Death of Edward III. Opposite Title-pa^e 

II. Extent of the English Conquests in 

France To face page i 

III. Henry V.'s First Campaign IN France ,, 97 

IV. England during the Wars of the 

Roses ,, 166 

V. Europe in the Fifteenth Century . ,, 240 



EXTENT OF THE ENGLISH CONQUESTS IN TRANCE U 




THE HOUSES 



LANCASTER AND YORK. 



-f- 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

The reign of Edward III. may be considered the 
climax of mediaeval civilisation and of England's early 
greatness. It is the age in which chivalry A^e of Ed- 
attained its highest perfection. It is the ward in. 
period of the most brilliant achievements in war and 
of the greatest development of arts and commerce before 
the Reformation. It was succeeded by an age of decay 
and disorder, in the midst of which, for one brief interval, 
the glories of the days of King Edward were renewed ; 
for the rest, all was sedition, anarchy, and civil war. 
Two different branches of the royal family set up rival 
pretensions to the throne ; and the struggle, as it went 
on, engendered acts of violence and ferocity which de- 
stroyed all faith in the stability of government. 

2. Even in Edward's own days the tide had begun to 
turn. Of the lands he had won in France, 
and even of those he had inherited in that French 
country, nearly all had been lost. Calais, Bor- conquests. 
deaux, Bayonne, and a few other places still remained ; 

B 



Preliminary, 



CH. I. 



but Gascony had revolted, and a declaration of war had 
been received in England from Charles V., the son of 
that king of France who had been taken prisoner at 
Poitiers. Edward found it impossible in his declining 
years to maintain his old military renown. His illus- 
trious son, the Black Prince, only tarnished his glory 
by the massacre of Limoges. Even if England had 
still possessed the warriors who had helped to win her 
earlier victories, success could not always be hoped for 
from that daring policy which had been wont to risk every- 
thing in a single battle. The French, too, had learned 
caution, and would no longer allow. the issue to be so 
determined. They suffered John of Gaunt to march 
through the very heart of their country from Calais to 
Bordeaux, only harassing his progress with petty skir- 
mishes and leaving hunger to do its work upon the in- 
vading army. England was exhausted and had to be 
content with failure. During the last two years of 
Edward's reign there was a truce, which expired three 
months before his death. But no attempt was made to 
do more than stand on the defensive. 

3. In domestic matters a still more melancholy re- 
action had taken place. The great King had become 
Imbecility of weak, and the depravity from which he and his 
hi^hls^"^^ people had emancipated them^selves at the be- 

later years. ginning of his reign reappeared at the close 
in a form almost as painful. Alice Ferrers ruled the King 
and sat beside the judges, corrupting the administration 
of the law. In the King's imbecility his sons conducted 
the government, and chiefly John of Gaunt, Duke of 
Lancaster, whose elder brother the Black Prince had, for 
. the most part, withdrawn from public life owing to his 
'The Good shattered health. But just before his death 
Parliament.' \^ 1 376, the latter, conscious of the corrupt 
state of the whole administration, gave his countenance 



1377- Preliminary. 3 

to what was called * the Good Parliament ' in attacking 
the principal abuses. They impeached, fmed, and im- 
prisoned various offenders who had been guilty of ex- 
tortion as farmers of the revenue, or of receiving bribes 
for the surrender of fortresses to the enemy; then, aiming 
higher still, not only ventured to complain of Alice Ferrers, 
but compelled the King to banish her from his presence. 
Unfortunately, the good influence did not last. On the 
death of the Black Prince ever}-thing was again undone. 
Alice Ferrers returned to the King. The Speaker of ' the 
Good Parliament' was thrown into prison. John of 
Gaunt returned to power and brought charges against 
William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, once the 
all-powerful minister of Edward III., in consequence of 
which he was dismissed from the Chancellorship and 
ordered to keep at a distance from the court, while the 
men who had been censured and condemned by Parlia- 
ment were released from their confinement. 

4. One act, how^ever, the Good Parliament accom- 
plished which was not to be undone. Immediately on 
the death of the Black Prince the Commons Richard, 
petitioned that his son Richard might be ^°i" ?*^^'® 
publicly recognised as heir to the throne. Prince, re- 
The significance of this act is not at oncG heu^tTthe^ 
apparent to us who are accustomed to a fixed crown. 
succession. But the days were not then so ver\- remote 
when it had been not unusual to set aside the direct line 
of the succession, either to avoid a minority or for some 
other reason ; and it might have been questioned still 
whether the right of a younger son, like John of Gaunt, 
was not preferable to that of a grandson, like young 
Richard. In this case, however, the general feeling was 
marked and unmistakeable. The great popularity of the 
Black Prince made the nation desire the succession of his 
son ; and the unpopularity of John of Gaunt strengthened 



4 Richard IL ch. ii. 

that desire still further. Hence it was that on the death 
of Edward III. his grandson Richard succeeded quietly to 
the throne. 



CHAPTER II. 

RICHARD II. 



I. The French War — Wycliffe and John of Gannt. 

I. It was just twelve months after the death of the Black 
Prince that his father, King Edward III., died at Sheen. 
A.D. 1377. According to what had been determined in 
June 21. Parliament, Richard was immediately recog- 

nised as king. He was at this time only eleven years 
Accession of ^^^j ^^^ could not be cxpccted to discharge 
Richard. ^\^q actual functions of government for many 

years to come. The utmost that could have been hoped 
under circumstances so disadvantageous was that he 
might have been placed under such tuition as would 
have taught him to exercise his high powers with vigour 
and discretion when he came of age. But even of this 
the state of parties afforded very little prospect. His 
eldest uncle, John of Gaunt, was so generally disliked 
that his influence would not have been tolerated, and no 
one else had any claim to be his political instructor. No 
attempt was made to form a Regency or to appoint a Pro- 
tector during the minority. The young King was crowned 
within a month after his accession, and was invested at 
once with the full rights of sovereignty. All parties 
agreed to support his authority, and seemed anxious to 
lay aside those jealousies which had disturbed the latter 
days of the preceding reign. John of Gaunt and 
William of Wykeham were made friends ; and the city 
of London, which had been much opposed to the former, 
was assured both of his and of the new King's good will. 



1377. The Fi'ench War. 5 

2. It was, indeed, a very proper time to put away 
dissensions, for the French were at that moment harassing 
the coasts. A week after King Edward's death they 
burned Rye. A httle later they levied contributions in the 
Isle of Wight, attacked Winchelsea, and set r^y^^ French 
fire to Hastings. About the same time the bum Rye. 
Scots were busy in the North, and burned the town of Rox- 
burgh. These and a number of other misfortunes were 
due mainly to the weakness of the government. 

3. A Parliament, however, presently assembled at 
London, composed mainly of the same persons as the 
Good Parliament of 1376. In this Parhament ^ ,. 

, r^ . Parliament. 

a subsidy was voted for carrymg on the war ; 
but to prevent a repetition of old abuses, the control of the 
money was placed entirely in the hands of two leading 
citizens of London, who were charged not to allow it to 
be diverted from the use for which it was intended. The 
names of these two citizens were William Walworth and 
John Philipot ; and they deserve to be noted here as we 
shall meet with each of them again in connection with 
other matters. 

4. About the end of the year there arrived in England 
certain bulls — not the first that had been issued by the 
Pope to denounce his teaching— against John 
Wycliffe, a famous theologian at Oxford, whose 

tenets, both political and religious, had created no small 
stir. Wycliffe denied that the Pope, or any one but Christ, 
ought to be called Head of the Church. He treated as a 
fiction that primacy among the Apostles which the Church 
of Rome had always claimed for St. Peter. He maintained 
that the power of kings was superior to that of the Pope, 
and that it was lawful to appeal from the sentence of a 
bishop to a secular tribunal. It was one of his cardinal 
principles that dominion was founded on grace, and that 
anyone who held authority, either temporal or spiritual. 



6 Richard I L ch. n. 

was divested of his power by God whenever he abused it, 
so that it then became not only lawful but right to disobey 
him. This teaching shook to its foundation the view 
commonly entertained of the relations of Church and State, 
but it recommended itself in many ways to no small sec- 
tion of the nation. As early as the year 1366 it had 
become of value to the Court ; for the Pope had revived 
the claim made by the See of Rome for tribute in the days 
of King John, and while the papal pretensions were repudi- 
ated by the Parliament at Westminster, Wycliffe defended 
in the schools of Oxford the decision come to by the 
legislature. 

5. In truth the authority of the Pope had not been 
strengthened in the estimation of Englishmen since the 
days when that tribute had been submitted to, especially 
not in the days of Wycliffe. For nearly sixty years the 
Papal See had been removed from Rome to Avignon, 
and in matters of international concern the Pope was 
looked upon as a partisan of the French king. Of the 
The Popes ^^^ Popes who had reigned at Avignon, every 
at Avignon. one had been a native either of Gascony or 
of the Limousin. The exactions of the Papal Court 
rendered it still more odious. The See of Rome had 
gradually usurped the right of presentation to bishoprics 
and prebends, and received the first fruits of each new- 
filled benefice, of which it endeavoured to make the 
utmost by frequent translations. At 'the sinful city of 
Avignon,' as it was called by the Good Parliament, there 
lived a set of brokers who purchased benefices and let 
them to farm for absentees. Thus a number of the most 
valuable preferments were absorbed by Cardinals and 
other foreigners residing at the Papal Court. And w^orse 
than all, the revenues of the English Church went fre- 
quently to support the enemies of England. For the 
Pope claimed a general right of taxing benefices, and 



,377. Wycliffe. 7 

when he required money for his wars in Lombardy, or to 
ransom French prisoners taken by the Enghsh, he could 
always demand a subsidy of the English clergy. The 
bishops did not dare to resist the demand, however little 
they might approve the object. In this way the Pope 
drew from the possessions of the Church in England five 
times the amount the King received from the whole 
taxation of the kingdom. And while all this wealth was 
withdrawn from the country, and some of it applied in a 
manner opposed to the country's interest, the people 
were so ground down with taxation that they were unable 
to provide effectively for defence against a foreign enemy. 
Statesmen therefore desired the opinion of divines 
whether England might not lawfully, as a Christian 
nation, refuse to part with her treasures to the See of 
Rome. Wycliffe had no doubt upon the subject. He 
declared that every community had a right to protect 
itself, and that it might detain its treasure for that 
purpose whenever necessity required; moreover, that on 
Gospel principles the Pope had no right to anything at 
all, except in the way of alms and free-will offerings of 
the faithful. 

6. Unselfish as his aim undoubtedly was, it was only 
natural that doctrines such as these should have recom- 
mended Wycliffe to the favour of the great. Even in 
the days of Edward III. he was a royal chaplain; and 
in the very first year of Richard II. his advice was asked 
by the King's council upon the question just referred to. 
On the other hand, he was naturally looked upon by 
churchmen as a traitor to the principles and constitution 
of the Church; nor could he hope to escape their ven- 
geance except by the protection of powerful laymen. In 
this respect the friendship of John of Gaunt was of most 
signal use to him; and it was shown in an especial 
mannernot long before the death of Edward III. On 



8 Richard IL 



CH. II. 



that occasion Wycliffe had been cited before the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbur}' and the Bishop of London at St. 
Paul's; and the Duke of Lancaster not only took his part, 
but befriended him so warmly as to let fall some offensive 
expressions against the Bishop of London. But he had 
very soon cause to repent the indiscretion. The 
Londoners resented either the affront to their bishop or 
the stretch of authority on the duke's part in protecting 
a heretic, and it was only at the bishop's own interces- 
sion that they refrained from attacking the duke himself 
or setting fire to his palace of the Savoy. 

7. The incident was characteristic of John of Gaunt, 
John of ^ ^^^ whose inward endowments, either of 

Gaunt. virtue or discretion, by no means corre- 

sponded with his artificial greatness. Although only the 
fourth son of King Edward III., he was the eldest 
that survived his father, and had, as we have already 
showTi, taken the lead in public affairs even during his 
father's latter days. On the day that Edward attained 
the age of fifty, he and an elder brother Lionel were 
raised by the King to the dignity of dukes — a title 
unknown in England till the beginning of his reign; 
and having married the daughter of a nobleman, then 
deceased, who had been created Duke of Lancaster, he 
was made Duke of Lancaster himself. On the death 
of his elder brother Lionel, who had been made Duke 
of Clarence, John of Gaunt was left the only duke 
in England, and when the Black Prince also died, he 
was the greatest subject in the realm. But his ambition 
had not been satisfied even with the great pre-eminence 
of a dukedom ; for, having taken as his wife in second 
marriage, Constance, the eldest daughter of Peter the 
Cruel of Castile, he assumed the title of King of Castile. 
The claim was utterly futile, and served only to exas- 
perate both France and Spain against England. For 



1377. John of Gaitnt, 9 

Henrys of Trastamara, the illegitimate brother of Peter 
the Cruel, against whose pretensions the Black Prince 
had won for Peter in Spain the battle of Navarrete, had 
been since fiimly established on the throne by the aid of 
the King of France. Moreover, at that very time the 
affairs of England in France were in a most critical con- 
dition; yet John of Gaunt, whom his brother the Black 
Prince had left to defend Aquitaine a year before, re- 
turned to England with his newly married wife and 
empty title just when his presence was most specially 
wanted in the south of France. After he was gone the 
English arms experienced a series of reverses ending in 
the complete loss of Aquitaine, and a new invasion of 
France, which he undertook in order to retrieve these 
disasters, was even more unfortunate. 

8. Altogether, he had shown little evidence of either 
military or political capacity ; and yet at the commence- 
ment of his young nephew's reign his influence was so 
great by the mere fact of his relation to the King, that 
everything was at his disposal. It was in vain even that 
Parliament had committed to Walworth and 
Philipot the control of the war expenditure. 
The Duke of Lancaster requested that the money granted 
by Parliament should be placed in his hands, that he 
might fit out a fleet and drive the enemy from the shores 
of England. The Lords of the Council, though with great 
misgivings, felt it necessar>^ to comply. They had little 
confidence in the duke, but durst not go against his will. 
Their distrust was justified by the result. The duke was 
very tardy in his preparations. The fleet at length sailed 
without him, was encountered by the Spaniards and was 
defeated. The commercial classes seem to have felt that 
they must see to the protection of their own interests 
themselves, for English shipping was exposed to the 
attacks of various enemies. John Mercer, a Scotch cap- 



lO Richard 11. ch. ii. 

tain, who was a man of considerable influence with the 
French king, had been taken at sea by some Northum- 
brian sailors and committed to the castle of Scarborough. 
His son, with the aid of a small force consisting of French- 
men, Scots, and Spaniards, suddenly entered the port of 
Scarborough and carried off a number of ships. But 
John John Philipot fitted out a fleet at his own ex- 

Philipot. pense, which after a short time fell in with the 

younger Mercer, and not only recovered the ships that he 
had captured but took him and fifteen Spanish vessels 
laden with rich booty. 

9. The fame of this achievement made Philipot highly 
popular, and people could not help contrasting it with the 
supineness and inactivity of John of Gaunt. When at 
last the duke set to sea he unfortunately did little to 
retrieve his past mismanagement, but failed again as he 
SieeeofSt ^^^ ^^ often done before. He crossed to 
iMaio. Brittany, besieged St Malo, and so terrified 
the inhabitants that at first they were disposed to come to 
terms with him. But the duke insisting on unconditional 
surrender, the citizens held out and the siege was prolonged, 
till at length, after losing a number of men, the English were 
compelled ignominiously to withdraw and return home. 

10. The war went on for some years languidly, with 
little glory to England. The national disasters however, 
together with the intolerable burden of taxation imposed 
Parliament to avcrt them, had a most important effect in 
the''exT)lndU Stimulating Parliament to inquire into the 
ture. expenditure, a claim which was not yet con- 
ceded to them by right, but under the circumstances could 
not be refused. The English also were deceived in their 
expectations of aid from the Duke of Brittany against 
France. John de IMontfort, Duke of Brittany, had done 
homage to Edward III. for his duchy, and had been 
assisted by Edward against his rival Charles of Blois, 



1378. The Great Schism, il 

supported by the King of France. His son John, who 
was now duke, with an undisputed title, had fought side 
by side with the Enghsh, and since Richard's accession 
had been placed in command of a portion of the English 
fleet. But he had pursued a double game from the first, 
and being recalled to his duchy, by the earnest entreaties 
of his people he soon afterwards made a treaty with France 
to dismiss the English from his dominions. 

1 1. Meanwhile, events had taken place at Rome which 
affected both the political and religious condition of ever>" 
country in Europe. Gregory XL, the last of the Popes 
who reigned at Avignon, had felt it necessary to remove 
to Rome in order to prevent the Romans setting up an 
anti-Pope. At Rome he died the year after his removal. 
Three quarters of the Cardinals in the im- 
perial city were French, but another French 
pope they did not dare elect. Their choice fell upon a 
Neapolitan, the Archbishop of Bari, who assumed the title 
of Urban VI. But shortly afterwards a portion of the 
Cardinals, pretending that the election had not been free, 
caused a new election to be made of Robert of Geneva, 
Cardinal of Cambray, who took the title of Clement VII., 
and once more set up a papal court at Avignon. 
Such was the beginning of what is known in in the 
histor>' as THE Great Schism. While Urban P^P^^y. 
was recognised as Pope by England, Germany, and the 
greater part of Europe, Clement was regarded as head of 
the Church by France, Spain, Scotland, and Sicily. Re- 
hgion was mixed up with the political animosities of 
nations, and crusades against the Clementines, as they 
^were called, were proclaimed as if they had been directed 
against infidels. Nor was the breach in the Church re- 
paired until thirty-seven years after it began. 



12 Richard IL ch. ii. 



II. Wat Tyler'' s Rebellion, 

1. In June 1381 there broke out in England the for- 
midable insurrection known as Wat Tyler's rebellion. 
A.D. 1381. The movement seems to have begun among 
Tune. i-j^g bondmen of Essex and of Kent, but it 
spread at once to the counties of Sussex, Hertford, 
Wat Tyler's Cambridge, Suffolk, and Norfolk. The pea- 
rebelhon. santry, armed with bludgeons and rusty 
swords, first occupied the roads by which pilgrims went 
to Canterbury, and made everyone swear that he would 
be true to King Richard and not accept a king named 
John. This, of course, was aimed at the government of 
John of Gaunt, who called himself King of Castile, and 
to whom the people attributed every grievance they had 
to complain of 

2. The principal, or at least the immediate cause of 
offence, arose out of a poll-tax which had been voted in 
The poll- ^^^ preceding year, in addition to other sources 
tax. of revenue, for the war in Brittany. A poll- 
tax of fourpence a head had already been levied in the 
year 1377 ; but this time the deficiency in the exchequer 
was so great that three times the amount was imposed. 
Every person above fifteen years of age was to contribute 
three groats to the revenue ; but to make the burden as 
equitable as possible, it was enacted that the rich should 
contribute for the poor, no one (except beggars, who were 
exempted) contributing less than one groat or more than 
sixty. When, however, the first collection was made, 
which should have brought in two-thirds of the whole 
amount, it was found not to have yielded so much as the 
former poll-tax. Commissions were accordingly issued 
to inquire in what cases the tax had been evaded. 

3. The investigation was one that could not have been 



1 38 1. Wat Tyler's Rebellion, 13 

conducted with too great delicacy ; but the manner in 
which the commissioners discharged their functions was 
offensive beyond measure. Even without very special 
provocation, there was at this time a dangerous spirit 
among the lower orders. The condition of Condition 
the peasantry had for a long time been steadily of the 
improving. The great plague which deso- p^^^^" ^' 
lated England in the year 1348 had so thinned the popu- 
lation that agricultural labour was much less easily pro- 
curable than it had been before ; and as wages had risen 
about one-half, those compulsory services which bond- 
men were still obliged to render to their lords, such as 
tilling his fields or carrying in the harvest, were sub- 
mitted to with far less good-will. A feeling had spread 
far and wide that bondage was a thing essentially unjust ; 
and with this grew up an intense hatred of the lawyers 
and of the laws which kept men in subjection. 

4. The commissioners, however, set about their in- 
quiries in a way which was not only calculated to give 
needless offence, but which was in many cases indecent 
and revolting. They soon found the whole peasantry of 
Kent and Essex banded together to withstand them. 
From village to village they mustered in hosts, putting to 
death all lawyers and legal functionaries, and destroying 
the court-rolls of manors which contained the evidences 
of their servile condition. And so in overpowering 
numbers they proceeded to Blackheath, where Muster upon 
they are said to have mustered 100,000 men. Blackheath. 
Their leader was a man of Dartford, named from his 
occupation Wat the Tyler, whose daughter had been sub- 
jected to insulting treatment by the commissioners, and 
who had avenged the indignity by cleaving the collector's 
head with his lathing-staff. They had also with them a 
fanatical priest named John Balle, whom they had 
liberated from Maidstone jail, where he had been con- 



14 RicJiard IT, 



CH. II. 



fined by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This man had 
been notorious for many years for the extravagance of his 
preaching, in which, however, he addressed himself to the 
popular prejudices, and seems in part to have adopted 
the teaching of Wycliffe. Letters written by him in a kind 
of doggrel rhyme were dispersed about the country. At 
Blackheath he addressed the multitude in a sermon be- 
ginning with what was then a popular saying — 

When Adam dalfoxid Ev6 span, 

Who was then a gentleman ? 

From which he proceeded to point out the injustice of 
servitude and the natural equality of men. 

5. The appearance and numbers of the insurgents 
were so formidable that the King, although he had gone 
down the river in his barge to meet them and learn their 
demands, was counselled not to land. The multitude 
accordingly passed on through Southwark into London, 
destroying the Marshalsea and King's Bench prisons. 
The lord mayor and aldermen at first resolved to shut 
the gates of the city against them ; but they had so many 
friends within, that the attempt to do so was in vain. 
When they came in they showed their hostility to John of 
Gaunt by setting fire to his magnificent man- 
palace sion, the Savoy Palace. They also burned 
burned. ^|^^ Temple and broke open the Fleet prison 
and Newgate, liberating all the prisoners. At the same 
time their motives seem to have been free from dis- 
honesty. Strict orders were given against theft, and one 
fellow who was detected purloining a piece of plate at 
the burning of the Savoy, was hurled by his comrades 
into the flames along with the stolen article. 

6. The King had removed for security into the Tower, 
along with his mother the Princess of Wales, once 
popularly known as ' the Fair Maid of Kent.' Two 
leading members of his council were with him, Simon 



1381. Wat Tyler's Rebellion. 15 

Sudbun', Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Lord 
Chancellor, and Sir Robert Hales, Prior of the Knights 
of St. John, who filled the office of Lord Treasurer. To 
the Tower also, as a place of safety, flocked many of the 
citizens. But as the insurgents so strongly insisted on 
laying their grievances before the King himself, Richard 
agreed to go out and meet them at Mile End, where they 
preferred to him certain requests, of which the principal 
was for a general abolition of bondage. This and their 
other demands the King felt it necessary to concede, and 
a charter was granted accordingly under the great seal. 
The charter was revoked after the insurrection was 
quelled; but it satisfied the assembly at the time, and 
the men of Essex took their departure homewards. 
Another party of the insurgents, however, under Wat 
Tyler himself, had at this very time forced an entrance 
into the Tower, and after conducting themselves with the 
greatest insolence towards the King's mother and her 
attendants, dragged cut the Archbishop of The Arch- 
Canterbury and Sir Robert Hales, and be- can^^rbury 
headed them on Tower Hill. The garrison murdered, 
within the Tower seem to have been utterly paralysed. 
The irruption of such an unclean and disorderly mob 
into the fortress seems altogether to have taken away 
their courage. At the same time many other decapita- 
tions took place, both on Tower Hill and in the city; 
and, as if to show that no restraints would be regarded, 
men were dragged out of churches and sanctuaries to be 
beheaded in the public streets. 

7. But though for the time absolute masters of every- 
thing, the triumph of the insurgents was shortlived. For 
the very next day, Wat Tyler had a conference with the 
young King at Smithfield, at which he dis- Death of 
played so much insolence that Wilham Wal- ^^at Tyler, 
worth, who was this year Mayor of London, killed him 



1 6 Richai'-d IL 



CH. II. 



with a blow of his sword. A cry immediately rose from 
the assembled multitude: — 'Our captain is slain. Let 
us stand together and revenge his death.' Bows were 
bent and arrows were about to be aimed at the King and 
his attendants. But Richard, who was at this time only 
in his fifteenth year, exhibited in the crisis the spirit of a 
true Plantagenet. Putting spurs to his horse he rode 
right into the midst of the rebels, and said to them, 
' What, my friends, would you shoot your king .^ Do 
not grieve for the death of that traitor. I will be your 
captain and leader. Follow me, and you shall have 
whatever you please to ask.' This boldness had a 
marvellous effect. The multitude, disconcerted, followed 
their young king into the open field. Still, it was doubt- 
ful whether they would kill him, or accept a pardon and go 
home, when fortunately there came from the city a band 
of volunteers hastily collected under Sir Robert Knolles, ' 
an experienced captain in the wars of Edward III., which 
surrounded the insurgents and placed the King in safety. 

8. This gave a fatal blow to the rebellion in London. 
The insurgents dispersed and went home, and the King 
conferred on William Walworth the honour of knight- 
hood and land of the value of loo/. But out of London 

there had been at the same time a general 

Commotions . . ,, , ,. 

in the rismg ovcr all the country, extendmg even to 

country. ^^ county of Norfolk, and northwards to the 

Humber. At St. Alban's the bondmen of the monastery 
committed many outrages, demanding emancipation from 
the abbot. In Suffolk the movement was kept up by a 
priest named John Wraw, sent do\vn by Tyler from 
London ; and, as in London, houses were destroyed and 
lawyers ever)^where beheaded, including even one of the 
justices. The prior of Bury too was put to death, and his 
head stuck upon the pillory. 

9. In Norfolk there was a rising under one John 



i'38i. Wat Tyler's Rebellio7i, ij 

Litster, a dyer of Norwich, whose surname, hke Tyler^s, 
denoted his occupation ; for ' litster ' was old English for 
a dyer. Here the insurgents proposed to take the Earl of 
Suffolk by surprise and make use of his name as their 
leader ; but the earl, being warned while he was at supper, 
made his escape and fled in disguise to the King. The 
insurgents, however, compelled one nobleman and some 
knights to go along with them, putting one to death who 
declared plainly his disapproval of their proceedings. 
Litster assumed the title of * king of the commons,' com- 
pelled the knights to serve him at table with meat and 
drink, and sent two of them up to London in company 
with three of his men, to obtain for the risers charters of 
manumission and pardon from the King. The knights 
set out, but were met before long by Spencer 
bishop of Norwich, a young and warlike prelate, Spenc^r of 
w^ho, having got news of the insurrection, was Norwich. 
armed to the teeth, with a few attendants. The bishop 
demanded of the knights whether they had not some of 
the traitors in their company ; on which the knights de- 
livered up their custodians, whom the bishop caused at 
once to be beheaded. He then hurried onwards into 
Norfolk, where the gentry flocked to his standard, and 
defeated the insurgents in a regular battle at North 
Walsham, which put an end to the disorders in the county 
of Norfolk. 

lo. The spirit which animated all of these commotions 
was of a kind that naturally spread the greatest possible 
alarm through all but the lower ranks of Spirit of the 
society. Nothing like it is to be seen at an rebellion. 
earlier date, nor even very much later. The rebellion of 
Jack Cade, which occurred nearly seventy years after, did 
not affect a democratic character or a positive hatred of 
law ; though in this respect Shakespeare has mixed up 

C 



1 8 Richard II, ch. ii. 

the features of both movements in describing the rebelhon 
of Jack Cade. The insurgents under Wat Tyler were, as 
we have seen, bondmen clamouring for emancipation and 
journeymen artificers who believed in the natural equality 
of men. The names of their leaders bespoke their plebeian 
origin, which they made no effort to disguise. They were 
Wat the Tyler, and Jack Straw, and John Wrawe, with 
John Litster in Norfolk. These men and their doings are 
pithily described by the contemporary poet Gower in some 
Latin verses, of v/hich Fuller, the Church historian, gives 
the following spirited translation : — 

Tom comes thereat when called by Wat, and Simon as forward we 

find; 
Bet calls as quick to Gibb and to Hykk, that neither would tarry 

behind. 
Gibb, a good whelp of that litter, doth help mad Coll more mischief 

to do, 
And Will he doth vow, the time is come now, he'll join with their 

company too. 
Davie complains, whiles Grigg gets the gains, and Hobb with them 

doth partake, 
Lorkin aloud, in the midst of the crowd, conceiveth as deep is his 

stake. 
Hiidde doth spoil whom Judde doth foil, and Tebb lends his help- 
ing hand, 
But Jack, the mad patch, men and houses doth snatch, and kills all 

at his command. 

However they might profess social equality as their 
doctrine, these men practically insisted, not upon equality, 
but on changing places with their masters. In this same 
poem of Cowers, which he called the Vox Claniaiitis^ he 
likened the whole movement to a rising of asses that sud- 
denly disdained the curb, and oxen that refused the yoke. 
Changing their natures, they became lions and fire-breath- 
ing monsters, and forgot entirely their original characters. 

II. It was in the beginning of the year following these 



1382. The Crusade in Flanders, I9> 

insurrections that the young King, having just attained. 
the age of fifteen, married Anne, the sister of ^ ^^ g^ 
Wenceslaus VI., king of Bohemia, daughter January. 
of the last Emperor of Germany, Charles IV. On the 
eve of his marriage he granted a general r^^ King's 
amnesty to all but the leading insurgents, which marriage. 
was politically set forth as having been conceded at the 
request of his future queen. At the same time strong 
measures were taken, and commissions sent out to repress 
and punish any future movements of the like description^ 
which were only too likely to arise from the lenity dis^ 
played on this occasion. For, in point of fact, the evil 
influence of the rebellion was palpable for many years- 
afterwards. Government was unhinged and authority 
was effectually weakened. John of Northampton, the 
mayor who succeeded Walworth, pursued a very different 
line of policy from his predecessor ; and the city of Lon- 
don, influenced by Wycliffe's teaching, usurped episcopal 
rights in dealing with offenders against morality. Two 
years later the same John of Northampton raised factious, 
disturbances in the city in opposition to another lord 
mayor, and being convicted of sedition before the King,, 
was banished into Cornwall. 



III. The Crusade in Flanders — The Invasion of Scot- 
land — The King^s Favourites, 

I. At this time a revolution took place in Flanders 
which had a special interest for Englishmen. The people 
of the Low Countries were always well affected to the 
English, with whom they were united by commercial 
interests ; but the Counts of Flanders favoured France. 
In the days of Edward III., the Flemings under James 
Van Artevelde, had for some time thrown off allegiance 
to their count and openly allied themselves with England. 



20 Richard II, 



CH. II. 



Philip Van And now under the guidance of Philip Van 
Arteveide. Artevclde, the son of their former leader, they 
in like manner rose against Count Louis II., who was 
driven out of Ghent, first to Bruges and afterwards into 
France. The King of France, Charles VI., who had suc- 
ceeded his father since Richard came to the throne in 
England, was only a boy ; but his guardian, the Duke of 
Burgundy, was son-in-law of Count Louis, and a French 
army, led by the young King himself, soon marched into 
the Netherlands. Arteveide, on the other hand, sought 
the support of England ; and it was so manifestly the 
interest of England to avail itself of Flemish sympathy 
against France, that the success of his application might 
almost have been supposed a matter of course. The 
English Council, however, were lukewarm and dilatory ; 
and, while Philip Van Arteveide was besieging Oudenarde, 
he found himself obliged to turn aside and give battle to 
the French, unaided by any but his own countr>Tnen. 
The Flemings, though strong in numbers, were deficient 
in cavalry, and were defeated by the French in three 
several engagements, in the last of which, the 
battle of Roosebeke, Van Arteveide was slain. 
2. So great a triumph to France — so complete an 
overthrow to allies like the Flemings — created serious 
alarm in England for the safety of Calais. A great 
opportunity had been lost ; but could anything be done 
even now? The question was anxiously discussed in 
Parliament, and it seemed there was still one effective 
mode of punishing the pride of France. Papal bulls had 
arrived in England authorising the warlike Bishop of 
Crusade of Norwich to proclaim a crusade against the ad- 
the Bishop hcrcnts of the anti-Pope Clement, which would 
enable the English to carry on war with their 
old enemy under the colour of religion. The project on 
the whole gave satisfaction ; it received the sanction of 



1383. The Crusade in Flanders. 21 

Parliament, and people came flocking in great numbers to 
the bishop's standard. One point only occasioned some 
little difficulty in point of principle. Although the French 
were Clementists, the Count of Flanders and his native 
followers adhered to Pope Urban. But the bishop had 
engaged beforehand that if the religious pretext would not 
serve the purposes of England, he would furl the banner 
of the cross and display his own. He accordingly crossed 
over to Calais and without even declaration of 
war succeeded in taking possession of Grave- 
lines, Dunkirk, and a few places near the sea coast of 
Flanders. But after laying siege unsuccessfully to Ypres 
he found it necessary to withdraw once more to Grave- 
lines, surrender the places he had taken, and finally return 
to England after razing Gravelines to the ground. The 
result of the expedition was humiliating enough ; but 
when Parliament met soon after, worse things were dis- 
covered. Money had been received from the enemy for 
the evacuation of Gravelines, and imputations of corrup*- 
tion were made against the bishop himself. This was a 
charge from which he succeeded in clearing himself, but 
it was fully proved against several of the captains ; and 
even the bishop did not escape severe censure and punish- 
ment for his conduct of the expedition. His temporalities 
were seized by the King and the offending captains were 
imprisoned. Nevertheless the bishop retained the good- 
will of many who admired his spirit, and in their partiality 
put a more favourable construction on his conduct than 
the facts would fairly warrant. 

3. The King at this time, though still under age, was 
not, strictly speaking, kept in tutelage. He had been 
crowned within a month after the death of his grandfather, 
and with that great act of State the full rights of sove- 
reignty had devolved upon him. But the fact that he 
was without a guardian only kept him more completely 



22 RicJiard 11. ch. ii. 

under the practical control of the Council, who were 
responsible to Parliament. As he grew up, this control 
became more and more distasteful to him, and he showed 
a disposition to seek counsel from men of his own choos- 
ing. More especially he was impatient of the authority 
and influence claimed by his uncle, John of Gaunt, Avhose 
ambition was believed to aspire to the crown itself Dis- 
trust and suspicions arose between uncle and nephew, 
which the King^s mother strove in vain to abate. The 
Duke of Lancaster being summoned to a council came with 
a number of armed men, saying that he had been warned 
of a plot to entrap him. Shortly afterwards the King 
T . c invaded Scotland with the Duke in his 

Invasion of 

Scotland. Company, laid waste the country as far as 
A.D. i^ o. ^^ Forth, and burned Edinburgh. Lan- 
caster then advised the King to go further and cross the 
estuary into Fife. The Scots, in fact, following their 
usual policy, had retired before the invading army and 
left even their towns an easy prey to the English, who 
had destroyed and wasted all they could, but still could 
not find their enemy. But the Duke of Lancaster's 
advice was the most impolitic that could have been given, 
and might well have justified a suspicion that he was 
acting treacherously, if it were not that he had already in 
times past given ample evidence of his utter incompetence 
as a general. Pachard, though not himself over-discreet 
at all times, was too wise to follow the advice. He told 
his uncle that he might conduct his own men where he 
pleased, but as provisions failed them where they were, 
the royal army would certainly return to England. 

4. It was perhaps with a view to counterbalance the 
great authority of John of Gaunt, who was at this time 
The King's the Only duke in England, that Richard now 
uncles. raised his two other uncles, hitherto Earls of 

Cambridge and Buckingham, to the dignity of dukes. 



13S5. TJie Kings Favotci'itcs. 23 

The former was made Duke of York, the latter Duke of 
Gloucester. The characters of these two brothers were 
very different. Except a sense of responsibility to the 
reigning power, whatever it might be, we fail to see any- 
thing very remarkable in that of the Duke of York. But the 
younger brother, Gloucester, was an active and ambitious 
prince who very soon made his influence felt to an extent 
that John of Gaunt never had done. Richard also at the 
same time bestowed honours and titles on two other 
persons who were invidiously pointed at as favourites, and 
who were believed, justly or unjustly, to exercise over him 
an influence injurious to the general weal. 

5. The first of these was Michael de la Pole, not a 
man of noble lineage, but the son of a wealthy merchant 
at Hull, who in the days of Edward III. had Michael de 
most patriotically lent the King enormous ^^ ^°^^ 
sums of money which were never truly repaid him, though 
by Edward's own confession they had been the means of 
averting great national calamities. William de la Pole, 
however, had received grants from the crown of various 
lands and offices, and also the honour of knighthood. Mi- 
chael, his son, had served in the French wars under Henr\^, 
Duke of Lancaster, and more recently under the Black 
Prince. His merits, even as an administrator, were cer- 
tainly detected long before young Richard was of age to re- 
cognise them; for in the very first year of the reign he was 
appointed an admiral, and went to sea with John of Gaunt. 
A few years later the care of the King's household was by 
Parhament committed to him and to the Earl of Arundel. 
Finally, in 1383, he was appointed Chancellor. So far 
he had risen without any personal help from Richard ; 
and, to all appearance, the integrity of his political career 
fully justified his promotion. But even by the probity of 
his administration he had made some enemies, and he 
had criticised very severely the conduct of the warlike 



24 Richard IL ch. it. 

Bishop of Norwich. This was unfortunate, for the bishop 
was a popular favourite. The expedition to Flanders, it 
was commonly believed, had failed only from the selfish- 
ness of John of Gaunt and the misconduct of others at 
home. The punishment imposed upon the bishop only 
raised him all the more in the esteem of the public, and 
De la Pole received little thanks for having been instru- 
mental to his disgrace. 

6. The other person to whom we have alluded was 
Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, a young man like the 
The Earl of King himself, and one who owed his position 
Oxford. ^^ court, not to natural ability like De la Pole, 
but to his ancestr}^ The office of Lord High Chamberlain 
had been hereditary in the family of Aubrey de Vere, Earl 
of Oxford, since the days of Henry II. This office brought 
him near the King's person, and whether it was due to 
mental endowments or only to superficial accomplishments 
Richard showed great partiality for his company. Accord- 
ingly, when the King had promoted in honour his two uncles 
and his Chancellor, he determined that the Earl of Oxford 
should not be passed over. He created him Marquis of 
Dublin — a new dignity, for till now there never had been 
a marquis in England — and the young man, to the envy 
of all the peerage, took precedence of every one not of 
the blood royal. With this honour was accompanied a 
gift of the w^hole land of Ireland, which it was intended 
that he should rule and bring into subjection ; and next 
year, to make his title correspond with his domain, the 
King created him Duke of Ireland. 

7. His moral qualities, certainly, did not entitle him 
to so much honour ; for notwithstanding his influence 
over the King, his character was in some things greatly 
inferior to that of Richard himself. Among all the 
charges brought against Richard the purity of his mamed 
life has never been assailed. The warmth of his domestic 



1385. Revolution and Conntcr-Rcvoliition, 25 

affection seems to have preserved him from those vices 
in which kings are but too easily led to indulge. The 
Duke of Ireland, on the other hand, as his fortunes rose, 
threw off the restraints both of morality and prudence. 
Although he had married PhiHppa, daughter of Ingram 
de Coucy, Duke of Bedford, and was thus allied to the 
blood royal, he fell in love with a German lady who came 
over in the Queen's suite. By the influence of his position 
he was enabled to obtain at Rome a divorce from his 
wife, and to marry this lady. His own mother, grieved 
at his conduct, took the divorced woman into her house. 
The Duke of Gloucester was specially indignant at the 
insult offered to the royal family. It exhibited in a most 
painful hght the ascendancy gained over the mind of the 
King by mere personal predilection, and the little regard 
he felt for more aged advisers of his own blood and 
lineage. The Duke of Ireland was supposed by some to 
be the absolute governor of the kingdom, and years after- 
wards it was said, though untruly, that the King listened 
to none but young and inexperienced counsellors. 

IV. Revohition and Comiter-Revoliition. 

I. If it was disagreeable to Richard to submit to the 
influence of John of Gaunt, he soon found that he could 
be subjected to still greater tyranny when that 
influence was removed. The year after the john o^f^ ' 
Scottish campaign the Duke of Lancaster Gaunt goes 
sailed into Spain with a great fleet to make 
good his title to the kingdom of Castile. He was aided 
by the Pope, who, as the Spaniards were Clementists, 
granted indulgences to all who joined the expedition, and 
he did not return to England till three years after. In 
his absence his youngest brother, Thomas Duke of 
Gloucester, immediately stepped into the place that he 



26 RicJiard II. ch. ii. 

had occupied, and not having Lancaster's mistakes to 
answer for, soon became a general favourite with the 
people. 

2. At this time very great alarm was caused in England 
by preparations made by France to invade the country-. 

Not only were large bodies of troops assem- 
Frenoh / bled and a great fleet collected at Sluys, but 
invasion., ^^ extraordinary apparatus had been con- 
structed^ in the shape of a moveable wall of wood, with 
towers at short intervals, which it was proposed to carry 
over the sea with the invading army and set up as a 
temporaiy fortification for any place they might succeed 
in taking. So great was the terror inspired by these 
preparations that the Londoners themselves wxre not 
without seripus apprehension that the enemy might one 
day be seen unexpectedly at their gates ; and the Chan- 
cellor, De la Pole, how Earl of Suffolk, caused large 
musters of men to be taken in the country within easy 
reach of the capital, that they might be ready when called 
for. But the danger i/hortly afterwards passed away. 
Some French vessels were taken at sea in which part of 
the wooden wall was found by the English ; and it was 
set up at Sandwich as a bulwark against that very enemy 
for whose use it had been intended. The French King had 
200 ships collected ^it Sluys, but the plan of the expedition 
was too curabrous, and after putting off for three months 
from one cause or another, the wind became unfavourable 
and the season was too late to cross the Channel. The 
alarm in England then subsidy, but it was remembered, 
to Suffolk's j^jf^'udice, that it was he who had caused 
those levies. of troops in the neighbourhood of London 
which had eaten up all the food of the people and op- 
pressed the inhabitants almost as if they had been 
enemies. t 

3. Meanwhile a Parliament had assembled in London. 



1 386. Revolution and Counter-Revolution. 27 

The immediate danger had not yet passed away, but the 
feehng of alarm was mingled with a sense of indignation. 
How came it that an enemy like the French, whom 
Englishmen had so often fought in their own country, 
were now able to inspire England with terror ? What a 
change since the days of King Edward III. and the 
Black Prince ! Whose fault could it be that no one went 
to fight the ships at Sluys and to disturb the enemy's 
preparations ? The Parliament felt very much inclined 
to censure those who had been entrusted with the ad- 
ministration, and sent a deputation to the King at Eltham, 
stating that they desired to treat of certain matters touch- 
ing the Earl of Suffolk, which could not be properly 
discussed while he remained Chancellor. The King was 
indignant at this attempt to remove a minister of whose 
merits he himself had a high and apparently well-founded 
opinion. He returned a haughty and imprudent answer, 
saying that he would not at the suggestion of Parliament 
dismiss the meanest valet of his kitchen, and he forbade 
them to say anything more on the subject. The Parlia- 
ment, however, refused to proceed with any other business 
till their request was granted, and Richard was obliged 
to yield. Suffolk was dismissed from the office Dlssjrace of 
of Chancellor and impeached in parliament. Suffolk. 
Of the charges brought against him the gravest was that he 
had misapplied money granted for the defence of the king- 
dom and disobeyed ordinances of the preceding Parlia- 
ment ; but of these points he was in effect acquitted, as it 
was considered that his fellows in the King^s^council were 
no less answerable for them than himself. To the others 
.which accused him of enriching himself unduly by grants 
from the Crown his answers were declared insufficient. 
He was accordingly condemned to forfeit all that had 
been granted to him by the Crown, and to be imprisoned 
during the King's pleasure. 



28 Richard IL ch. ii. 

4. The disgrace of Suffolk, however, was only intended 
to clear the way for a new scheme of government devised 
by the ambition of Gloucester. On the plea that the Crown 
revenues were wasted by mismanagement, a commission 
of regency was demanded, by which it was virtually pro- 
posed to deprive the King of all authority whatever, from 
that time fonvard. To terrify him into compliance, the 
Commission Commons scnt for the statute by which 
of regency. Edward II. had been deposed, and a friend of 
the Duke of Gloucester represented to him that if he ob- 
stinately resisted, it would endanger his life. Under these 
circumstances Richard only contended for the control of 
his own household by the nomination of his own steward, 
and that the powers of the commission should not con- 
tinue more than one year, unless renewed by Parliament. 
Eleven lords and three great officers of state were then 
named to carry on the government, with full power to ex- 
amine into the accounts of the treasury, to enquire into 
past abuses, and to administer justice where grievances 
could not be redressed by the common law. In short, the 
power of the commissioners was to be absolute, and while 
it lasted the King's authority was to be extinguished ; 
yet, to prevent the smallest attempt being made to under- 
mine their authority, the King was compelled to give his 
assent to an enactment that whoever counselled opposition 
to the new regency should be liable, for the first offence, 
to imprisonment with forfeiture of his goods, and for the 
second, to the loss of hfe or hmb. 

5. The King at the close of the session was bold 
enough to make a personal protest in Parliament against 
anything that had been done contrary to the prerogatives 
of the Crown. He was at this time nearly twenty years 
of age, and a tame submission to enactments so very 
stringent would have sacrificed his authority for ever. To 
emancipate himself he took counsel with the Duke of 



1386. Revolution mtd Coimtei'-Revolntion. 29 

Ireland, who for some time delayed his departure for that 
country which he was to govern. After Easter the duke 
at length made arrangements for his going, and the King, 
leaving London along with him, accompanied him into 
Wales. But the duke had no intention yet to cross the 
Channel. On the contrary, the journey had been arranged 
that the King might take counsel undisturbed, not only 
with him, but also with some others, such as the Earl of 
Suffolk, the Archbishop of York, and Sir Robert Tresilian, 
Chief Justice of England. This Tresilian was a severe 
but undoubtedly sagacious judge. He had been appointed 
Chief Justice at the time of Wat Tyler's rebellion, when 
his predecessor was slain by the rioters. Men were at 
that time so terrified by what had passed, that juries 
showed great unwillingness to indict ; and at St. Alban's, 
where the insurgents had been peculiarly violent, one jury 
refused. But Tresilian, warning them that they would 
endanger their own lives by a verdict against the evidence 
where the facts were so well known, at length got them 
to find a true bill against the rioters, which being obtained, 
he procured two other juries to give answer on the same 
cases exactly in agreement with the verdict of the first. By 
this means the offenders were at length brought to justice, 
and a wholesome fear of the law was re-established. But 
Tresilian's name was not the more loved in consequence, 
6. The King and his friends remained some time in 
Wales, but afterwards assembled a council council at 
at Nottingham, to which were summoned Nottingham. 
all the justices and sheriffs from every county, and 
some of the more notable citizens of London. In the 
midst of this assembly the King demanded of the judges 
their opinion as to the statutes passed in the preceding 
session of Parliament, whether they were derogatory to 
the royal prerogative, and if so, what punishment was 
incurred by those who had compelled the King to sub- 



30 Richard IL 



en. II. 



scribe to them. A unanimous answer was returned that 
the statutes were an invasion of the prerogative, and that 
those who had extorted the King's compHance had in- 
curred the penalty of treason. This opinion was signed 
by all the judges, and countersigned by the members of 
the Council. It is true that some who signed it after- 
wards alleged that they had been driven to do so by fear ; 
but to all appearance, it was by fear that they were in- 
duced to make such an assertion. The commission of 
regency was distinctly unconstitutional, and quite as great 
an outrage on the liberty of the subject as on the rights 
of the King. It was now declared invalid. 

V. The Struggle Continued — The Wonderful Parlia- 
me7it — The King of age. 

1. Hoping, accordingly, that he was now emancipated 
from the control under which he had been placed, Richard 

A.D. 1387. proceeded to London, w^here he arrived a few 
Nov. 10. ^g^yg before the date at which the commission 
of regency was to expire. He was met outside the capital 
by the mayor and citizens, wearing his own livery of white 
and crimson, and by them he was conducted, first to St. 
Paul's and afterwards to Westminster. But the Duke of 
Gloucester, and his alhes the Earls of Arundel and Not- 
tingham, had meanwhile taken alarm, and having ad- 
vanced to Hackney at the head of 40,000 men, were 
joined next day at Waltham Cross by Henry, Earl of 
Derby, the son of John of Gaunt, and by the Earl of 
Warwick. These five lords gave it out as their object to 
deliver the King from certain traitors who, they said, kept 
him under undue control, and, according to the phraseo- 
logy then in use, they ' appealed of treason ' five of the 
King's principal advisers. 

2. Richard had at first thought of resistance to this 



1387. The Struggle Contimted, 31 

great amied host, but he soon found the city of London 
was not to be depended on. The lords gave out that the 
King's chosen counsellors urged him to treat with France 
for aid to put them down. Richard, it was said, was 
going to sell Calais to the French kng. The Mayor of 
London told the King the city was willing to arm against 
his enemies, but not against his friends. Everywhere the 
favourites were unpopular, and the Duke of Gloucester 
and his allies were looked upon as the true friends of the 
King and kingdom. The city opened its gates to them, 
and the five * lords appellants ' presented themselves 
before Richard in Westminster Hall, named the five 
councillors whom they accused as traitors, flung down 
their gloves, and offered to prove the truth of their 
accusations by single combat. The King, however, de- 
cided that the matter should not be so determined, pro- 
mising that it should be fully discussed in the next Parlia- 
ment. Meanwhile, he insisted that both parties should 
be considered as remaining under his protection. 

3. Unfortunately, the King's protection, so far as the 
one side was concerned, was now of very little value. 
Richard was again in the hands of those from ^,. , , , 

r , -, , 1 1 . Flight of the 

whom he had been endeavourmg to escape. King's 
and they consulted seriously about his depo- favourites. 
sition. The favourites saw that there was no safety 
for them except in flight, and they one and all escaped 
from London in disguise. Archbishop Nevill of Vork 
retired into the north country in the habit of a simple 
priest. The Duke of Ireland fled to Chester in the 
character of a groom, accompanied by four or five 
others. The Earl of Suffolk betook himself to Calais, 
where his brother Edmund de la Pole was governor of 
the castle. Dressed as a Flemish poulterer and carrying a 
basket with capons as if to supply the garrison, he sought 
admission to the fortress ; but his brother thought it his 



32 Richard I L 



CH. II. 



duty to deliver him to Lord William Beauchamp, governor 
of the town, by whom he was sent back to England. 

4. The King was utterly deserted. He had, however, 
commissioned the Duke of Ireland to raise forces for him 
in Cheshire, and the duke collected a body of 5,000 men 
with whom he marched southwards to the borders of 
Encounter Oxfordshire. He was met at Radcot Bridge 
Brid^e^^'^ upon the Thames by a force under the Earl of 
Dec. 20. Derby. Seeking to avoid this army he was 
confronted by another under the Duke of Gloucester. 
Hemmed in on all sides he at once gave up the hope of 
victory and endeavoured to save himself by flight. He 
plunged on horseback into the river, leaving his helmet 
and armour on the bank. It was now night, and no one 
saw what had become of him. He was supposed to have 
been drowned. Molyneux, Constable of Chester, who 
also dashed into the river, was forced to return for fear 
of being pierced with arrows, and had his skull cleft on 
relanding. A groom and a boy were also killed. For 
the rest there was little fighting, or rather none. The 
Cheshire men were stripped of their weapons and even 
of their very clothes, and were left to go home in a state 
of disgraceful nakedness. The Duke of Ireland found 
means to escape to Ireland. 

5. The lords returned in triumph to London. Their 
armies, in three divisions, mustered at Clerkenwell, 40,000 

strong. After a little hesitation the city opened 
its gates to them. The King, who was spend- 
ing his Christmas in the Tower, knew now that he was 
completely in their power. The victors sought an inter- 
view with him and were admitted within the fortress. 
They showed him the letters he himself had ^vTitten to 
the Duke of Ireland ordering him to raise a force to 
oppose them, and they led him on to the ramparts from 
whence he could see Tower Hill covered with an immense 



1388. The Struggle Continued, 33 

multitude of their followers. ^ These/ said the Duke of 
Gloucester, ^ are but a tenth part of the numbers who 
will join us to put down traitors.' The lords had not been 
able to agree about Richard's deposition, which, however 
acceptable it might have been to the Duke of Gloucester, 
was opposed by the Earls of Derby and Nottingham. 
But they were quite united in the determination to take 
vengeance on all who had given the King independent 
advice. Writs of summons had been issued by Richard 
for the meeting of Parliament, in which, considering the 
subjects that were to be discussed, the sheriffs had been 
instructed to return as knights of the shire persons who 
had not taken part in the recent quarrels. These writs 
were revoked on the ground that such a quali- ^.d. 1388. 
fication was contrary to the ancient form, and J^"- ^• 
new writs were issued omitting the objectionable clause. 
Proclamations were then issued for the appear- 
ance before the Parliament of the Archbishop ^"* ^' 
of York, the Duke of Ireland, Suffolk, Tresilian, and Sir 
Nicholas Brambre ; while at the same time orders were 
sent out consigning the two latter to Gloucester Castle, 
and a number of other friends of the King to confinement 
in other places. But Tresilian was not yet in custody. 
He was hiding himself from the vengeance that pursued 
him. 

6. Every one in whom the King had hitherto placed 
his confidence was now removed. Even his confessor, 
the Bishop of Chichester, was forbidden to come near 
him. The dominant party had not the least opposition to 
fear in the approaching Parliament. Some rumours, how- 
ever, had got abroad which they felt it would be well to 
contradict at the commencement of the session. So after 
the causes for which Parliament was summoned _ , 

Feb 3 

had been declared by the Bishop of Ely as 
Chancellor in the King's name, the Duke of Gloucester 

D 



34 Richard IL ch. ii. 

came fonvard and knelt before his sovereign, saying that 
he understood he had been accused of an intention to 
depose him and make himself king, from which he offered 
to justify himself in whatever manner the peers thought 
proper. The charge was certainly not without some 
foundation in truth, and the other ' lords appellants ^ knew 
it well. But Richard at once declared in full Parliament 
that he held his uncle perfectly innocent. 

7. After this the serious work of the session com- 
menced, and very serious work it proved to be. It was 
not without significance that the clause in the \mts in- 
tended to secure impartiality was cancelled. The doings 
of this Parliament are without a parallel in English his- 
The w - ^^^^'' — ^^ much so that the name ' Wonderful 
derfui Par- Parliament ^ came aftenvards to be applied to 
lamen . ^^^ With equal truth it was also called ' the 
^Merciless Parliament.' On the very first day, all but one 
of the judges were arrested in their own courts while 
sitting upon the bench, and sent to the Tower. They 
were to be brought to account for the advice they had 
given the King that the proceedings of the last Parlia- 
ment were unconstitutional. A long impeachment was 
then drawn up against the five ministers accused by the 
five lords appellants. The charges against them were 
mainly that they had misled the King and alienated his 
true lords from him, with some more specific accusations 
in connection with the conference at Nottingham and 
similar matters. One article also spoke of an intention, 
that it was said had been entertained, to make the Duke 
of Ireland king of that country and alienate it from the 
Crown of England. 

8. Before pronouncing judgment upon this impeach- 
ment, the King desired to have the advice of the lawyers. 
The bill was laid before a committee of the profession, 
who pronounced it altogether irregular, either in civil or 



1388. The Struggle Cuiitiimed. 35 

ecclesiastical law. The lords, however, decided that in 
cases of treason, and when the accused were members of 
their own body, no other law could be recognised than 
the law of Parliament itself. After some days' discussion 
fourteen articles of the indictment were declared to amount 
to treason, and four of the appellees were found guilty. 
The Duke of Ireland, Suffolk, and Tresilian were con- 
demned to be hanged and forfeit all their goods. The 
Archbishop of York was found guilty, and his temporali- 
ties were seized; but being a churchman, the penalty of 
death could not be pronounced against him. The King, 
however, was made to write to Rome for his translation 
to the Archbishopric of St. Andrew^s in Scotland, a country 
where the authority of Urban VI. was not recognised, 
and by this means he was in eifect deprived. He escaped 
to Flanders, where he by some means was fortunate enough 
to obtain possession of a small living. 

9. The Archbishop, the Duke of Ireland, Suffolk, and 
Tresilian were all absent when judgment was pronounced 
against them. The duke had escaped to the Continent, 
and the earl had found a refuge in France. But Tresihan 
was lurking disguised in Westminster. He was discovered, 
brought up for sentence, and dismissed to immediate exe- 
cution. The last of the accused councillors. Sir Nicholas 
Brambre, was in prison. He offered to prove his innocence 
by wager of battle, but it was decided that such a mode 
of defence was not applicable to the case ; so he too, 
underwent the capital sentence. 

10. The Commons next impeached the judges and 
law officers who had counselled the King at Nottingham 
to set aside the ordinances of the last Parliament. They 
endeavoured to save themselves by alleging that they had 
acted under compulsion, but the excuse was not admitted. 
They were found guilty of treason, but at the intercession 
of the bishops their lives were spared and they were 



36 Richard 11. 



CH. II. 



banished to Ireland for the remainder of their days. But 
John Blake, a lawyer who had proposed to indict the five 
lords for conspiracy, and Thomas Uske, who had accepted 
the office of under-sheriff of Middlesex for the purpose, 
w^ere condemned and executed. The Bishop of Chichester, 
who, as we have already mentioned, was the King's con- 
fessor, was then called before Parliament. He denied a 
charge imputed to him of having used threats to the 
judges at Nottingham, and said they were placed under 
no constraint whatever. But he had been guilty of con- 
cealing the ' treasons ' of the condemned councillors ; in 
excuse for w^hich he in vain pleaded the confidential 
nature of his office, and that he had used his best efforts 
with the King to prevent mischief. He was banished, 
like the judges, into Ireland. 

1 1, Not satisfied with this, the Commons proceeded 
to impeach four other knights as accomplices of the con- 
demned traitors. The first was Sir Simon Burley, lately 
Constable of Dover Castle, a veteran of the preceding 
reign, to whom the Black Prince had committed the care 
of Richard's childhood. He offered, like Brambre, to 
prove his innocence in the ordinar>^ manner of knights. 
This he was not allowed to do, but his accusers had much 
trouble to establish his guilt. The King, the Queen, and 
even the Earl of Derby, one of the lords appellants, made 
the most urgent efforts to induce the Duke of Gloucester 
to spare his life ; but all was to no purpose. Of thirteen 
charges one was at length declared to be proved ; sentence 
of death was passed upon him, and he was beheaded the 
same day. The three other knights suffered a week later. 

12. At the end of four months — an unusually long 
session in those days — Parliament was dissolved, but not 
until it had made the King renew his coronation oath and 
every member of both Houses swear that they would 
never allow its ordinances to be repealed. Already all 



1389. ^-^^^ Struggle Co7i tinned, 37 

the members had sworn at the beginning of the session 
to be true to the five lords and take their part against all 
opponents so long as Parliament should last ; the sheriffs 
also throughout the kingdom were ordered to exact a 
similar oath of all the principal residents within their 
jurisdictions. 

13. Even after the breaking up of such a Parliament 
the King was left for some time in subjection to the 
confederate lords. But next year, at a council a.d. 1389. 
held in the beginning of May, he suddenly ^e^King 
asked his uncle Gloucester to tell him his of age. 
age. ' Your Highness,^ said the duke, ^ is in your twenty- 
second year.' ' Then,' replied the King, ' I must be old 
enough to manage my own affairs, as every heir in my 
kingdom is at liberty to do when he is twent\^-one. I 
thank you, my lords, for the trouble you have taken on 
my behalf hitherto, but I shall not require your services 
any longer.' On this he required the Great Seal and the 
keys of the Exchequer to be given up to him, and made 
the venerable Bishop Waynflete his chancellor instead of 
the Archbishop of York. Of the other lords then in his 
council he retained the Duke of York and the Earl of 
Derby as members of a new council ; but Gloucester and 
the rest he dismissed. At the same time no violent 
change was effected ; and the King's assertion of his 
independence seems to have met with general approbation. 

VI. The King and the Duke cf Gloucester, 

I. For some years little or nothing occurred to dis- 
turb the harmony between King and people. There was, 
it is true, at one time, a renewal of the old dis- 
trust between the city of London and the 
Court, and the city not only refused the King a loan of 
1,000/., but actually maltreated a Lombard who was 



38 Richard 11. 



CH. II. 



willing to accommodate him. For this the mayor and 
sheriffs were arrested, and it was determined that the 
Londoners should no longer have the free election of 
their rulers, but be governed by a warden appointed by 
the King. But Richard was soon persuaded to forgive 
the citizens. He consented to receive deputies from the 
city, who pleaded hard in behalf of their ancient hberties. 
He ratified some of their franchises, amended others, and 
restored the right of self-government to the city on their 
tinding him 10,000/. security for their future good be- 
haviour. Finally, he consented to pay the city a visit, 
when he was received with eveiy possible demonstration 
of joy and satisfaction. The nobles, however, we are 
told, were offended at his lenity towards a turbulent 
metropolis. 

2. But from the time of the dismissal of the five lords, 
it was hardly possible that those noblemen could be so 
assured of the King's forgiveness and cordiality as to feel 
no kind of anxiety for the consequences of their past con- 
duct. The Duke of Gloucester, in particular, distrusted 
his nephew, and held aloof from his councils. When 
summoned to attend and give his advice on public affairs 
with other lords, it is said that he was always the last to 
come and the first to go. Richard, nevertheless, showed 

him a remarkable degree of confidence. He 
A.D. 1393. employed him in negotiations for peace with 
A.D. 1394. France, took him in his company over to 

Ireland, to subdue some rebellious chieftains, 
A.D. 1395. and while remaining in that country sent him 

over again to England to demand supplies 
from a Parliament at London. But the old breach was 
not effectually healed. The duke courted popularity, 
and whenever the policy of Richard was in any degree 
opposed to the prejudices of the majority, he was always 
on the people's side. In the year 1394 Richard lost his 



1396. The King and the Duke of Gloucester, 39 

Queen, Anne of Bohemia, to whom he was most devo- 
tedly attached. Two years later he endeavoured to 
convert an old enemy into a friend, and proposed to form 
a firm alHance with France, cemented by a marriage with 
Isabella the French king's daughter, though she was only 
eight years old. To this the Duke of Gloucester showed 
himself strongly opposed, appealing to the old national 
hatred of France, and insinuating that Richard would 
give up Calais and all the English conquests to the 
French king. The marriage nevertheless was 
duly celebrated, and it was not long after that 
the misunderstanding between the King and his uncle 
came to a crisis. 

3. Information was conveyed to the King that Glou* 
cester had formed a new conspiracy against him with his 
old associates. According to Froissart, he 

•,.1 1 • 1 1 r 1 • ^-D- 1397- 

applied to his two other uncles for advice. 
They confessed the dake was greatly given to intrigue, 
but advised the King to let the matter sleep, as he had 
no power to carry his designs into execution. Richard, 
however, was not thus satisfied ; and if we may trust his 
own proclamation afterwards, his uncles must have ad- 
mitted at length that it was needful to anticipate the 
danger. He accordingly paid a visit to the Duke of 
Gloucester at his castle of Fleshy, in Essex, and there 
caused him to be arrested and delivered to the custody 
of the Earl of Nottingham, the Earl Marshal, by whomi 
he was immediately conducted to the Thames, put on 
board a boat, and conveyed over to Calais. The Earls 
of Warwick and Arundel were arrested at the same 
time. 

4. The policy pursued by these same lords ten years 
before was now turned against themselves. At a council 
held at Nottingham, a number of the other nobles, in- 
cluding Edmund Earl of Rutland, a son of the Duke of 

X 



40 Richard II. 



CH. II. 



York, and Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshal, engaged to 
* appeal ' them of treason at a coming parliament. On 
its assembling, the Commons petitioned that the com- 
mission of regency of the year 1386 should be repealed, 
as having been extorted by violence, and that it should 
be treason to attempt to procure such a commission in 
future. They also desired that all pardons, whether 
general or special, heretofore granted to the Duke of 
Gloucester and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, should 
be revoked, as having been given under constraint or 
passed in ignorance. This was in effect but the first step 
towards calling them to account for actions which had 
been for many years condoned. The petitions, however, 
were unanimously agreed to by both Houses ; and the 
Commons, leaving to the Peers the trial of the charges 
brought by the appellants against the three lords, pro- 
ceeded to impeach Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, a brother of the Earl of Arundel, of high 
treason, as having been instrumental in procuring the 
commission of regency and the execution of Sir Simon 
Burley, against the wdll of the King. The archbishop 
acknowledged the facts in the presence of the King and 
certain lords ; his confession was recorded in Parliament, 
and sentence of banishment and confiscation was pro- 
nounced against him. 

5. Of the three lords who were to be tried in Parlia- 
ment, the first who was brought up for judgment was 
Arundel, the archbishop's brother. He was a 

Execution . . . , , , , , , 

of the Earl favourite With the people, but had enemies 
of Arundel ^^long his brother peers, besides being dis- 
liked by the King. In the early part of the reign 
he had been appointed admiral, and had won for 
himself general admiration by a splendid victory over 
a combined fieet of Flemings, French, and Spaniards, 
when he captured a hundred ships. Such a man was of 



1397. ^^^^ King and the Dnke of Gloucester, 41 

course looked up to by all those who were opposed to the 
French alliance. But John of Gaunt, with whom he had 
more than once quarrelled, was commissioned to preside 
at his trial as Lord High Admiral of England ; and the 
revocation of all the pardons previously granted to him 
destroyed the only plea by which he ventured to defend 
himself. He was condemned to be beheaded, and was 
executed the same day in Cheapside. 

6. The Earl Marshal, who. was governor of Calais, 
was then commanded to bring over the Duke of Glou- 
cester to be tried before his, peers. He sent back an 
answer that the duke could not be produced, as he had 
died in his custody at Calais.. It was natu- ^^ ^ ^ 

^ Murder of 

rally believed that he had been put to death the Duke of 
by Richard's -order ; and though the fact Gloucester, 
is not absolutely free from doubt, there is certainly 
great reason to suspect that it was true. The duke, 
however, had made a written confession in his own 
hand before his death, in reply to certain questions which 
William Rickhill, one of the justices, had been commis- 
sioned to administer to him. He had acknowledged the of- 
fences he had committed against the King ten years before. 
He admitted that he had come armed into the King's 
palace, taken the King's letters from his messengers and 
opened them without his leave ; that he had taken counsel 
about throwing up his allegiance and deposing his sove- 
reign. All these acts, however, he professed to have done 
in self-defence and for fear of his life; moreover, the 
deposition of the King, he affirmed, was only intended to 
be for two or three days, after which the confederate 
lords would have renewed their oaths to him and placed 
him in as high a position as before. But since a certain 
day when he had been sworn to the King upon the 
Sacrament at Langley, he denied that he had ever made 
or known of any gatherings against him ; and on these 



42 Ricliard II. ch. ii. 

grounds he appealed to the King's compassion, as a 
prince that had always shown himself merciful in par- 
doning offenders. 

7. His own acts, certainly, when he was in power, 
gave him but little claim to compassion now ; yet it 
would have been well for Richard if, after obtaining from 
him such a confession, he had suffered his uncle to live. 
The murder, indeed, was quite unnecessary, for he could 
have had no difficulty, if so minded, in bringing Gloucester 
to the block by the judgment of his peers in parliament ; 
and if he feared the spirit of disaffection such an act 
would probably have aroused, he ought to have feared no 
less a public rumour that the duke had been foully dealt 
with. But the time had come, apparently, when he 
thought it necessary for his own safety altogether to ex- 
tinguish the confederacy which, eleven years before, had 
stripped him of his royal power and almost succeeded in 
preventing the possibility of his recovering it. If treason 
of such a magnitude could be condoned, — if any pardon 
afterwards granted could shield such great offenders, — 
was there not very serious danger that a similar attempt 
would be made another time ? 

8. The Earl of Warwick did not undergo the fate 

either of Gloucester or of Arundel. When 
Warwick brought to trial he confessed his guilt, and 
banished. sentence was pronounced upon him, but the 
King commuted it into exile, and banished him to the 
Isle of Man. 

VII. The Dukes of Herefo7'd and Noj'folk. 

I. Thus were three of the five ^ lords appellants' of 1387 
incapacitated for giving further trouble. The other two 
still remained alive, but their conduct was more favour- 
ably construed. It was declared that the Earls of Derby 



1397. ^-^^^ Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. 43 

and Nottingham had separated from their colleagues 
whenever they perceived the true nature of their designs ; 
and so far were they from being incriminated on the pre- 
sent occasion, that they stood among the accusers of their 
old confederates. In point of fact they were justified in 
disclaiming full complicity with Gloucester, for it was 
owing to their opposition that he was obliged to abandon 
the design of deposing his nephew. Besides, the Earl of 
Derby had made the strongest remonstrances against the 
execution of Sir Simon Burley, and even quarrelled with 
his uncle for insisting on it. As to Nottingham, the Earl 
Marshal, his conduct had evidently, long before this, re- 
gained him the King's confidence, for Richard had sent him 
into France to negotiate his marriage with Isabella, and 
even as his proxy to marry her. But at this time, as if to 
remove all possible misapprehension, the King took oc- 
casion to acknowledge both these lords publicly as his 
friends, by creating the Earl of Derby Duke of Hereford, 
and the Earl Marshal Duke of Norfolk. 

2. Unfortunately the turn which affairs were now 
taking hardly allowed them to repose with confidence 
even on these strong evidences of the King's regard. 
Parliament was busy reversing all that the Wonderful 
Parliament had done, and in a supplementary session 
held at Shrewsbury in the beginning of the The Par- 
following year the whole of the proceedings gf "^^",^ °^ 
of that Parliament were expressly annulled, bury. 
It would have been well if this had been done by 
measures that were not open to very much the same 
objections. But the acts of this Parliament were in 
reality nothing else than a copy of those passed in 
the Parliament which they condemned. As in 1387 
five lords appealed the King's favourites of treason, so 
now the friends of the King appealed three of the former 
lords appellants. As in 1387 an impeachment was sus- 



44 Richard II. 



CH. II. 



tained declared by the lawyers to be irregular, so now it 
was ruled that no pardons, general or particular, could be 
pleaded against the appeal. As in 1388 Lords and Com- 
mons all took an oath that they would not allow the acts 
of that Parliament to be repealed, the very same was done 
on this occasion. Further, as in 1388 Archbishop Nevill 
of York had been, on application to the Pope, deprived 
of his archbishopric by being translated to the See ot 
St. Andrew's in Scotland, where the authority of Urban 
was not acknowledged, the very same means were now 
used to deprive Archbishop Arundel of the See of 
Canterbury. He, too, was translated by Urban to St. 
Andrew's. It was a great day of retribution for past mis- 
deeds, and warning had been given already that royal 
pardons were no security to the offenders. 

3. Such being the case, it happened that one day in De- 
cember 1397, the new-made Duke of Norfolk overtook the 
new-made Duke of Hereford on the road between Brent- 
ford and London, and in the course of conversation ex- 
pressed a fear that even they two might be brought to 
account for their old confederacy with Gloucester and the 
affair of Radcot Bridge. The Duke of Hereford said he 
could not believe that the King^ would be guilty of so 
great perfidy, but Norfolk insinuated that it was no 
longer possible to trust to anything, and that they would 
be made responsible like the others. In communicating 
his thoughts thus freely to the Duke of Hereford, Norfolk 
doubtiess trusted either to his sense of honour or of inte- 
rest to keep it secret. But his confidence was misplaced. 
The general drift of the conversation was communicated 
by Hereford to the King, who commanded him to submit 
a report of it to. Parliament. This he did in the session 
held at Shrewsbury in the beginning of the 
A.D. 139 . ^^^^ ^^^g — \^\i\i what results we shall see 

presently. 



1398. TJie D tikes of Hereford and Norfolk. 45 

4. It is evident that since the days of the commission 
of regency a considerable reaction had taken place in 
favour of the royal prerogative. Authority had been 
shaken to its foundation at the beginning of the reign. 
Wat Tyler and the rebels had shown its weakness. The 
King, who was the constitutional source of power, was 
then a minor, and a strong despotism, under a popular 
favourite like Gloucester, was preferred to a more equit- 
able government by weaker men. The spirit of the King 
himself was cowed by being thus brought into subjection. 
He failed in one attempt to reassert his authority, and 
even when he did regain his liberty he made no attempt 
to punish the wrong that had been done to him. The 
opinions given by his judges at Nottingham were still 
branded as treason. The judges themselves he only 
ventured to recall from banishment in 1397. But now he 
had a Parliament desirous of restoring authority to its 
old foundations. The constraint that had been put upon 
the King in former days was at length declared to have 
been illegal. The questions addressed by the King to 
the judges at Nottingham and the answers given by them, ' 
which they themselves afterwards disowned through fear, 
were read in the Parliament at Shrewsbur\\ The judges 
and serjeants-at-law were called in and asked to give 
their opinion on the subject. They one and all confirmed 
the answers given by the former judges, and declared 
that they would have made the same replies. The com- 
mission of regency, the Wonderful Parliament and all its 
acts, were therefore illegal, and were accordingly so 
declared. As the King was the real source of all legiti- 
mate power, the King's will could not be lawfully put 
under constraint of any kind. 

5. The reaction was not unnatural, but it was a 
dangerous one to carry too far ; and the Parliament at 
Shrewsbury carried it to an extreme. It was not in itself 



46 Richard IL 



CH. ir. 



calculated to give greater weight to their proceedings, 
that having once met at Westminster, they should have 
assembled after the Christmas recess on the borders of 
Wales. Yet in a very brief sitting at Shrewsbury, this 
Parliament not only annulled the whole proceedings of 
the Wonderful Parliament, but enacted that any attempt 
to annul their own should be considered treason. The 
King even asked if greater security could be given on 
this head, and if he could bind his successors ; but being 
told that he could not, he made application to the Pope 
and obtained a .bull denouncing excommunication against 
any one who should attempt to reverse what had been 
done. To complete the fabric of despotism, the Parlia- 
ment, after sitting only four days, delegated its whole 
powers to a committee of twelve lords and six commoners, 
special friends of the King, who were to act after its 
dissolution. By this ing^iious device Richard was made 
practically absolute. It could hardly be necessary for 
him ever to call a parliament again; for wherever the 
King himself was with a sufficient number of the com- 
mittee, he had the full powers of Parliament with him. 

6. To this tribunal were referred the accusations 
brought by the Duke of Hereford against Norfolk. Both 
parties were summoned to appear befoye it, first at Os- 
westry and afterwards at Windsor : but as nothing could 
Wager of be elicited from either, except assertion on 
battle. ^Q^ one hand and denial on the other, it 

was proposed, and agreed to by both dukes, to settle 
the matter by wager of battle according to the laws 
of chivalry. The combat was appointed to be at 
Coventry on September 16. The whole nation was 
agitated at the prospect of the coming event, and 
when the lists were drawn up on the day appointed, 
Richard fearing disturbances among the nobles, had 
ic,ooo persons in arms to keep the peace. On which 



1398. The Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. 47 

side lay the sympathies of most men there could not be a 
doubt, for the Duke of Norfolk was commonly looked 
upon as the murderer of the Duke of Gloucester, and the 
Londoners even insinuated that the wager of battle was 
a plot of the King's to destroy his cousin as he had 
already destroyed his uncle. Henry of Lancaster, as he 
was popularly called, the Duke of Hereford, was every- 
where the favourite. 

7. At Coventry, on the day appointed, the combatants 
entered the lists. Each took an oath that his quarrel was 
just, the Lord Marshal examined their spears to see that 
they were of equal length, and a herald commanded them 
to mount their horses and proceed to the combat. But 
at this point the King threw down his ^^'arder as a signal 
to suspend further proceedings, and consulted with his 
parliamentary council what course it was best to take in 
a matter so full of danger. After two hours' deliberation, 
the determination was, announced. To 
preserve the peace of the realm the King dukes 
decreed that the Duke of Hereford should ^^"i^^^d- 
be banished for ten years, and that the Duke of 
Norfolk, as it appears he had confessed to some points 
which might have occasioned trouble in the land, 
should quit the kingdom as a pilgrim, never to return, and 
should dwell in Germany ^ Bohemia, or Hungary for the 
rest of his days. Finally, lest they should become recon- 
ciled abroad and combine against the King, they were 
forbidden to communicate with each other or with the 
deprived Archbishop Arundel. 

8. A decision like this was a strange perversion of 
justice. On the face of the matter one party was guilty 
of treason, or the other of gross and malicious libel. The 
King could not determine on which side lay the guilt, 
and professed to regard either party as innocent, yet out 
of considerations of expediency he punished both as if 



48 Richard IL ch. ii. 

they had both been guilty. There was, besides, an ap- 
parent partiahty shown to the Duke of Hereford on 
grounds which were not very explicitly declared. But 
the unfairness of the original decision was not all ; for 
while the sentence against Norfolk passed uncriticised, 
the milder sentence against Hereford was still further 
mitigated. Owing, doubtless, to the influence of his 
father, John of Gaunt, and to his general popularity, the 
term of his exile w^as reduced from ten years to six before 
he left the country. That of Norfolk was not altered. 
So the latter went abroad, made a pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem, and died on his return at Venice of a broken 
heart. What became of the Duke of Hereford must be 
related at greater length. 

VIII. The King and Henry of Lancaster'. 

1. Richard had now got rid of all the five lords who 
had leagued themselves together against him in 1387. 
He had also got rid of parliamentary control. But he 
could not be altogether free from the fear of future com- 
binations. And having already entered on a career of 
Richard's dcspotism he saw no means to make himself 
despotism- secure except to become more and more des- 
potic. He and his parliamentary committee issued an 
ordinance declaring it treason to attempt to obtain a 
reversal of any of their decrees, just as it had been al- 
ready declared treason to attempt to annul those of the 
Parliament. Every bishop before obtaining possession 
of his temporalities, and every lord before coming into 
his inheritance, was to swear to observe, not only the 
statutes made in the Parliament of the twenty-first year 
of the reign, but also all the ordinances made afterw^ards 
by the parliamentary committee. 

2. But even this abuse of powxr was not so much felt 



1399. TJie King and Henry of Lancaster, 49 

as some others to which the King was afterwards driven 
by the state of his exchequer. His finances 

A.D. 1399. . - 11-1 1 

were getting low, and he raised money by 
forced loans. All who were any way implicated in the 
His extor- '^^^'^ ^^ Gloucester, Warwick, and Arundel, 
tions. were compelled to purchase their pardons by 

fines ; and seventeen counties were in this way amerced 
as having assisted the confederates at Radcot Bridge. 
But the mode of extortion which naturally excited the 
greatest amount of discontent was the issuing of what 
were called blank charters, to which even those not 
accused of treason, but the moneyed men of the kingdom 
generally, were compelled to set their seals, without 
knowing to what amount they made themselves liable. 

3. The exigency which led him to resort to this last 
means of raising money seems to have been occasioned 
by a rebellion in Ireland which he determined Rebellion 
to go and put down with an army under his in Ireland. 
personal command. He had already, some years before, 
visited that country with results which appeared at the 
time to be satisfactory. All attempts to oppose his power 
were soon abandoned. The native chieftains submitted 
and did him homage. Four native kings acknowledged 
his sovereignty at Dublin, received the honour of knight- 
hood, and promised to adopt English customs. But now 
he learned that his cousin, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, 
whom he had left as his vicegerent, had been slain in a 
new revolt of the natives, and he determined to go thither 
once more and bring the Irish into more complete sub- 
jection. 

4. But meanwhile an event had taken place which 
unhappily suggested to the King's mind the thought of 
an act still more arbitrary and perfidious. Old Death of 
John of Gaunt died in the early part of the \^^^^f 
year, and his title as Duke of Lancaster de- Feb. i 



50 Richard II, ch. ii. 

volved rightly on his son the banished Hereford. It had 
also been conceded to the Dukes of Hereford and Nor- 
folk before they left England, that notwithstanding their 
banishment they might by attorney take possession of 
any inheritance that might fa.ll to them in their absence. 
But the 'King's wants were great, the duchy of Lancaster 
was w^ealthy, and it occurred to Richard and his council 
(now that there was no one on that council to represent 
the interests of the family), that a banished man was not 
qualified to inherit property. The former grant was con- 
sequently annulled, and the King's officers took possession 
of the property of the deceased duke, as a forfeiture due 
to the Crown. 

5. After Whitsuntide Richard sailed for Ireland from 
Milford Haven with a fleet of 200 ships. Within two , 
days he arrived at Waterford, from which he 
sails to advanced to Kilkenny. There several chief- 

Ireland. ]^2ims submxitted to him' with halters round 

their necks. He then vvxnt on to Dublin, and w^as pre- 
paring for a further campaign when he suddenly received 
news from England of a most alarming nature, vs^hich 
showed hovv^ much his presence was required in his own 
kingdom. Henry of Lancaster, who since he left the 
country had resided at Paris, had obtained permission of 
the French king to pay a visit tb the Duke of Brittany. 
Arrived in that country he hired three small vessels with 
which he sailed for England, having in his company the 
deprived Archbishop of Canterbury and a very small 
band of followers. After some days he landed at Raven- 
Henry of spur in Yorkshire, a harbour at the mouth of 
\tnds\n^ the H umber now washed away by the sea. 
England. He made known that it was his object to re- 
cover his paternal estates, with the title, which justly 
belonged to him, of Duke of Lancaster, and he was joined 
by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, be- 



1399- T^^^^ King and Henry of Lancaster, 5 1 

fore whom he took oath at Doncaster that he had no 
further aim than to seek his own inheritance. 

6. The King's uncle, Edmund Duke of York, whom 
Richard had appointed keeper of England during his 
The Duke absencc, on hearing of Henry's landing took 
of York. counsel how to oppose him. He summoned the 

King's retainers to join his standard at St. Alban's, where 
he mustered 1,000 lances and 60,000 archers ; but so high 
was the popularity of the Duke of Lancaster, so deep 
the general sense of the injustice with which he had been 
treated, that these very men declared they would not go 
against him. On this the Duke of York bent his course 
towards Wales, where Richard had always met with the 
most unwavering support. He reached Berkeley Castle, 
while the Lord Treasurer, Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, with 
Bushy and Green, two leading members of Richard's 
parliamentary committee, went to Bristol. Sir John 
Bushy had been the Speaker of the House of Comm.ons 
before the last Parliament was dissolved ; and he, with 
Sir Henry Green and Sir William Bagot, were universally- 
detested as the principal agents of the King's extortions. 
Meanwhile the Duke of Lancaster had passed southv/ards 
with a following which continually increased the further 
he went on, and had arrived at Evesham as the Duke of 
York reached Berkeley. The latter had now no hope of 
taking the field against him ; but the thought of his duty to 
Richard still weighed upon his mind, and he seems to 
have cast about for some means of satisfying his con- 
science on the score of his allegiance, without attempting 
an enterprise which was manifestly hopeless. Was the 
Duke of Lancaster really a rebel after all ? He sent him 
a message to demand his object in coming thus armed 
into the land — did he mean to dispossess King Richard 
of the crown, or did he only seek to recover his own 
property ? According to the oath already taken by Duke 



52 RicJiard IL ch. ii. 

Henry at Doncaster this last was his only object; but 
that object could not be effected unless the evil counsel- 
lors who had persuaded Richard to confiscate his posses- 
sions were removed and punished. So Henry confessed 
that he came to remove the King's evil counsellors, but 
he denied that he had any designs against the King 
himself. This declaration appears to have satisfied the 
scruples of the Duke of York, and he, the chosen gua,rdian 
of Richard's kingdom in his absence, went over to Henry's 
side. 

7. Duke Henry, now practically master of the whole 
kingdom, went on to Bristol, where he caused the Earl 
of Wiltshire, Green, and Bushy to be beheaded ; the first 
for an alleged bargain that he had made to sell Calais to 
the French king, and the two others on the ground that 
they had counselled extortionate taxation. All three^, 
indeed, along with Bagot, had farmed the revenues of 
the kingdom, and derived large profits from the people's 
burdens ; so they met with little compassion. It was 
fortunate for Bagot that he was not apprehended at the 
same time ; but instead of going to Bristol on Henry's 
approach, he had escaped into Cheshire, from which he 
passed over into Ireland. 

8. Meanwhile the King himself was in Ireland, igno- 
rant of the revolt of his kingdom at home. When he was 
first apprised of Henry's invasion he was thunderstruck. 
He had with him at that very time the son of the invader,, 
afterwards the brilliant victor of Agincourt, Henry V. 
He was his godson, and he had just recently made him a 
knight with his own hands. But his thoughts first turned 
not to the son but to the father of his present enemy. 
* Ha, good uncle of Lancaster,' he exclaimed, ^ God have 
mercy upon your soul ? For had I believed you, this man 
would not have angered me now. You told me truly I 
did ill to forgive him so frequently. Three times have I 



1399. ^^^^ King and Henry of Lancaster. 5 3 

pardoned him his offences against me ; this is the fourth 
time he has provoked me.' Another time, addressing the 
young man, ' See,' he said, ^ what thy father has done. 
He has invaded my realm as an enemy, kilhng and im- 
prisoning my heges without pity. I grieve for thee, for 
this mischance may cost thee thine inheritance.' ^ My 
gracious lord,' said the other, ' this news distresses me 
greatly ; but you see that I am innocent of what my 
father has done.' ' I know it,' said the King, ' and I hold 
thee guiltless.' The young prince, however, along with 
a son of the Duke of Gloucester, was removed to the Castle 
of Trim for security. 

9. Yet even now the urgency of the crisis was scarcely 
realized. That the King must return to England was 
obvious, but there were not enough vessels at Dublin to 
transport a large army, so the question was whether the 
King himself should go over at once, or send the Earl of 
Salisbury first into Wales. By the advice of the Duke 
of Albemarle (or as his name was popularly called, Au- 
merle), the Duke of York's son, the latter course was 
resolved on. Salisbury was sent over with as large a 
force as the ships could convey, and the King marched 
with the rest to Waterford to embark there, intending to 
rejoin the Earl in Wales. The resolution was most un- 
fortunate. The Earl of Salisbury landed at Conway and 
soon gathered to his standard a large number of the 
Welsh. But a whole fortnight elapsed and nothing was 
heard of the King, Vv^hile it was known that Henry had 
gained nearly the whole of England, and was everywhere 
removing the King's officers and putting to death those 
who opposed him. At last the King arrived at Milford 
Haven along with his c ousin the Duke of Albemarle, his 
half-brother the Duke of Exeter, and his nephew the 
Duke of Surrey, three bishops, and a pretty considerable 
army. But the news which met them on their arrival 



54 Richard II. ch. ii. 

was so discouraging that the great bulk of these forces 
very speedily deserted him ; and Richard, after a con- 
sultation, set out in disguise by night, accompanied by 
just fourteen of his more trusty friends, to join the Earl 
of Salisbury at Conway, desiring the Duke of Albemarle 
and Sir Thomas Percy to follow him. They, however, in 
the<morning dismissed the remaining forces and hastened 
to join Henry. 

lo. At Conway the King arrived in safety, but it was 
only to learn that his last hope had failed him. The 
Earl of Salisbury indeed was there ; but the men v/hom 
he had at first succeeded in raising for the King's service 
were no longer with him. In the utter absence of all 
tidings from Richard disagreeable rumours had got 
abroad and he had found it impossible to keep them 
together. The Earl burst into tears when he saw his 
sovereign and explained to him the hopelessness of the 
situation, but it was presently arranged that the Dukes 
of Exeter and Surrey should go to Henry to learn the 
extent of his demands, and report them to the King. The 
Duke of Exeter was the King's brother, but he had married 
Henry's sister, and Henry on seeing him endeavoured to 
win him to his side ; but he declined to allow either him 
or Surrey to return to the King, and sent the latter a 
prisoner to Chester Castle. Henry now resolved on 
obtaining possession of Richard's person, and commis- 
sioned the Earl of Northumberland to go to Conway. 
The Earl took with him a body of men and archers, with 
whose aid he took possession of Flint and Rhuddlan 
Castles, but before coming in sight of Conway he left 
them behind. That castle was too strong to be easily 
taken, and the King might have escaped from it by sea. 
Northumberland accordingly went fonvard with only five 
attendants, and obtained an audience of Richard as the 
bearer of a letter from the Duke of Exeter and of Henry's 



1399- T^hc King and Henry of Lancaster. 5 5 

answer to his message. The demands of Henry, he said, 
were that Richard should promise to govern according to 
law, that Exeter, Surrey, Salisbury, and the Bishop of 
Carlisle should be tried in Parliament as accomplices in 
the murder of Gloucester, and that Henry should be made 
grand justiciary of the kingdom, as his ancestors had 
been. On these conditions Henry was willing to come 
to Flint, ask the King's pardon on his knees, and go with 
him to London. 

1 1. Only a sense of utter helplessness induced Richard 
to listen to these terms with patience. They implied that 
he was to deliver up, nominally only for trial, but really 
to execution, his brother, his nephew, and the counsellors 
who were then about him. On consultation with these last, 
however, it w^as thought good that he should dissemble, 
and only exact an oath from the Earl of Northumber- 
land, which he had expressed himself quite ready to take, 
that Henry would adhere to these conditions. The Earl 
then swore to that effect upon the Sacrament, and Richard 
consented to accompany him. But they had not gone 
far w^hen the King came in view of Northumberland's 
armed followers and saw he was betrayed. He would 
have returned, but the Earl seized his horse by the bridle 
and carried him off in all haste to Flint Castle, there to 
await an intervievr with Henry. On August 19 Henry 
came at the head of a mighty host, and presented himself 
before the King in full armour. ' IMy lord,' he said, ' I 
have come before you have sent for me. The reason is 
that your people commonly say you have ruled them very 
rigorously for twenty or two and twenty years ; but, if it 
please God, I will help you to govern better.' 

12. With great parade and blowing of trumpets Rich- 
ard and his little company were conducted to Chester, 
where the 'King was confined in the dungeon of the castle. 
Writs, however, were issued in his name, summoning 



S6 Richard II. ch. ii. 

Parliament to meet at London. In a few days the journey 
was resumed, and dismissing most of his forces the duke 
brought Richard to the capital, where the former was 
received with acclamations, the latter with curses. The 
King was committed to the Tower, and even his child 
queen, who was at this time but ten years old, was for- 
bidden to visit him. On Michaelmas day his signature 
was obtained to an act of abdication in which he declared 
himself utterly incapable of governing and worthy to be 
deposed. The Parliament met on the following day. In 
Deposition it the King's resignation was read, and gave 
of the King, g-j-eat satisfaction. An act was then passed 
setting forth a number of charges against his govern- 
ment as reasons for his deposition ; which met with no 
opposition except from his faithful counsellor the Bishop 
of Carlisle, who for challenging the right of the two 
Houses to take such a step was sent prisoner to the 
Abbey of St. Alban's. Henry next stepped forward and 
claimed the throne as rightly due to him by descent from 
King Henry III. 

13. Now in point of fact Henry was not the next in 
succession. His father John of Gaunt was the fourth son 
, of Edward III., and there were descendants 

claim by of that King's third son, Lionel Duke of Cla- 
descent. rencc, living; so that it should have been 

quite unnecessary to go back so far as Henry III. At 
one time Richard himself had designated as his successor 
the nobleman who really stood next to him in the line of 
descent. This was Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, the 
same who was killed by the rebels in Ireland. This Roger 
had left a son Edmund to inherit his title ; but Edmund 
Avas a mere child, and the inconvenience of another 
minority could not have been endured. So the nation 
was very well disposed to accept Henry as king without 
inquiring too closely into his claim by birthright ; and 



1399- ^^^^ King and Henry of Lancaster. 57 

Henry put forward a claim through his mother founded 
upon a very idle story indeed, a story so extravagant 
and untrue that it looks as if it had been invented to 
serve his purpose. The truth, however, seems to be 
that it was current in the days of his father John of 
Gaunt, who got it written in some chronicles which were 
sent to different monasteries, to flatter his vanity ; and 
perhaps John of Gaunt expected that he himself might 
have been able one day to claim the crown upon the 
strength of it. This story was that so far back as the 
days of King Edward I. the succession had got out of 
the true line of descent ; that the eldest son of Henry III. 
was not King Edward, but his brother Edmund Crouch- 
back, Earl of Lancaster, who was commonly reputed the 
second son ; and that this Edmund had been purposely 
set aside on account of his personal deformity. The 
plain fact of the matter was that Edmund Crouchback 
was six years younger than his brother Edward I., and 
that his surname of Crouchback had not the smallest 
reference to personal deformity, but only implied that he 
w^ore the cross upon his back as a crusader. 

14. Archbishop Arundel then stepped forward and led 
Henry to the throne, on which, after a brief prayer, he 
took his seat amid general applause. The Parliament 
then dissolved after having sat a single day. As it had 
been summoned in Richard's name, its authority expired 
with his. Neither Parliament, judges, nor officers of any 
kind throughout England had any authority now till the 
new King had renewed their commissions. But Henry 
summoned the same Parliament to meet again six days 
afterwards, appointed new officers of the crown, and then 
withdrew to his palace. 

15. So ended the unhappy reign of Richard H., a 
prince who had certainly very little natural capacity to 
govern, and who, called to the throne in boyhood, could 



S8 Richard 11. cii. n. 

never be placed under such tuition as would have brought 
out the httle capacity he had. It was the desire of the 
nation itself during his minority to emancipate him as 
much as possible from the control of his natural protector 
John of Gaunt ; but when, yielding to this influence, he 
chose his own advisers, there rose up a cry that he was 
misled by favourites and abandoned himself entirely to 
the counsels of young men. These complaints, which, 
after all, were not altogether true, served the purpose of 
the factious Duke of Gloucester, and enabled him to 
establish for a time a despotism quite as odious and as 
absolute as any that an anointed king could have at- 
tained to. It was terminated, apparently to the general 
satisfaction, by an act of self-assertion on Richard's own 
part, when he came of age ; and for some years after 
things went pretty smoothly. But as new dangers crossed 
his path he grew more arbitrary, imperious, and unjust. 
He met intrigue by treachery, put his troublesome uncle 
to death without a trial, extorted money from his subjects 
by forced loans, and by his own kingly authority perverted 
law and justice. Yet it may be questioned whether he 
was at heart the cruel and vindictive character he is 
often represented to have been. He v/as undoubtedly a 
man of very sensitive feelings, a most devoted husband^ 
and apparently to his true friends steadfast, as far as his 
power would reach. But it was a question through the 
whole reign whether the kingly power was to be treated 
as a reality or as a fiction, and Richard, who was of an 
angry and passionate temper, was not the man to use 
any power entrusted to him with discretion. 

1 6. In personal appearance he was handsome. There 
was a delicate beauty in his features which corresponded 
with a mode of life too luxurious for the age. He was a 
lover both of art and literature, the patron of Froissart, 
Gower, and Chaucer, and the builder of Westminster 



1399- 



Liter at lire and Science, 59 



Hall. But he was thought too fond of show and mag« 
nificence, and some of his contemporaries accused him 
of too great love of pleasure. Yet of positive immorality 
we have no real evidence, and his devotion and tender- 
ness to both his queens (child as the second was) is a 
considerable presumption to the contrar}\ And as re- 
gards the expenses of his household, it does not appear 
that he was led on this account to tax his people im- 
moderately. His ruin was simply owing to despotic and 
arbitrary measures — not in any way to pecuniary burdens 
that he inflicted on the nation. 



CHAPTER III. 

LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. 



T. The reign of Richard 1 1, is an interesting period in Eng- 
lish literature. Before that time there was, strictly speaking, 
hardly any English literature at all. There were, indeed, 
ballads and some rhyming chronicles in English, but all 
serious authors wrote in Latin. An author who desired 
many readers naturally preferred to use a language which 
was understood over all Europe. A courtly author, or one 
w^ho aimed at refinement, would rather have written in 
French than in English ; for French was the language of 
the King's court and also of the courts of law. Besides, 
the English spoken in one part of the country was so 
unlike the language current in another part, that an 
author writing in English could not have spoken to 
the whole people. But by this time Englishmen had 
begun to write in English for serious purposes. It was^ 
apparently, in the latter part of the reign of Edward III. 
that a religious poet, whose name is believed to have 
been William Langland, wrote a remarkable allegorical 



6o Richm'd II. ch. m. 

work called 'The Vision of Piers Plowman.' A little 
later, Wycliffe translated the Bible into English wycilffe's 
for the use of the unlearned. The influence ^^^^e. 
of this latter work was extraordinar>^ It created through- 
out the land a much stronger sense of the reality of 
religious truth ; and it placed in the hands of the common 
people a rich and suggestive literature, full of inex- 
haustible material for thought and reflection. 

2. A native literature naturally grew up in the wake of 
such a book. The learned began to write for the people 
in their own tongue. Wycliffe himself wrote several 
treatises in English. The poet Chaucer, too, and his 
brother poet Gower, wrote for amusement or edification 
tales, poems, and prose compositions in English. Chaucer 
especially was a poet of the people ; his English compo- 
sitions are very numerous, and notwithstand- 
ing the antiquity of the language, are read 
with a living interest at this day. His mind is typical of 
the nation in its breadth and cultivation. While de- 
scribing with intense enjoyment the humours of the road 
and of the tavern, he nevertheless paid the highest honour 
to the knight's ideal of chivalry and the parson's ideal of 
godliness. He looked into all the science and philosophy 
of the day, and expounded them in the vulgar speech. 
He wrote a book on astronomy for his little son Lewis. 
He translated from the French the poem, so popular 
upon the Continent, called the ' Romaunt of the Rose,' 
and he adapted tales from the Italian of Petrarch and 
Boccaccio, authors who lived in his own day, and one of 
whom he is supposed personally to have known. His 
best known work is the ' Canterbury Tales,' in which he 
describes a pilgrimage, such as was common in those 
days, to the shrine of St. Thomas k Becket at Canterbury. 
Persons who had been ill used to make vows to visit that 
shrine on their recovery ; and Chaucer represents about 



1399. 



Literature and Seieiice. 6i 



thirty pilgrims starting from the Tabard Inn in South- 
wark and teUing stories, each in his turn, to amuse them 
on the way. 

3. Chaucer was a man who had seen much of the world. 
He had fought in the wars of Edward III. in France, 
and had been some time a prisoner. He had visited 
Italy. He had been sent on embassies. He was patro- 
nised by John of Gaunt and was attached to the royal 
household. In 1386 he sat in Parliament — in that 
parliament in which Michael de la Pole was indicted ; 
but what part he took in the proceedings we cannot say. 
When the commission of regency was instituted he was 
dismissed from^ the office of controller of Customs in 
London which had been granted to him by the Crown. 
But with some changes of fortune Chaucer generally 
remained in favour at Court, not only under Edward III. 
and Richard II., but also under Henry IV., in the begin- 
ning of whose reign he died. 

4. The other poet of the day, John Cower, was 
Chaucer's personal friend, and was, like him, patronised 
by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. ' ?vIoral 

Go wer ' he was called by Chaucer, and the name 
was most appropriate. In all he wrote he was perpetually 
moralising. His principal w^orks were three, entitled 
respectively, '• Speculum Meditantis,' ^ Vox Clamantis,' 
and ' Confessio Amantis ' (the Mirror of one Meditating, 
the Voice of one Crying, and the Confession of a Lover). 
The first of these poems was written in French and does 
not appear now to be extant. The second w^as written 
in Latin on the subject of Wat Tyler's rebellion. The 
third was written in English, in his old age, in obedience 
to a command of Richard II., who one day invited the 
poet into his barge and desired that he would dedicate 
some composition to him. He accordingly produced a 
long poem on the subject of love, which he made the 



62 RicJiard II. ch. in. 

vehicle of a multitude of tales and reflections. But the 
book was not dedicated to King Richard after all, or 
rather that dedication was withdrawn ; for John Gower, 
who was what Dr. Johnson called ^ a good hater/ was 
completely alienated from his sovereign in the latter part 
of his reign, and he presented the completed labour to 
Henry of Lancaster. Gower also wrote a political poem 
called a ^ Tripartite Chronicle/ in honour of the revolu- 
tion which placed Henry IV. upon the throne, in which 
lie very severely reviewed the whole government of 
-Richard II., calling it ^a work of hell/ and extolled his 
■dethronement and the accession of Henry as ' a work in 
Christ.' 

5. Wycliffe died on the last day of the year 1384, three 
years after Wat Tyler's rebellion, and two years before 
the impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk. His name 
must always be chiefly associated in our minds with the 
translation of the Bible and the doctrine promulgated by 
himself and his followers. For it was through that work 
that he exerted so powerful an influence on the succeeding 
The 3.ge, and to it his followers, who were commonly 

Lollards. called Lollards, continually appealed in proof 
of their favourite tenets. But there is another aspect in 
which Wycliffe may be regarded. He was the last of 
what are commonly called the great Schoolmen — dis- 
tinguished philosophers, v/ho, during the Middle Ages, 
upheld and promulgated at the universities new systems 
of tholight, which they themselves had introduced. Such 
were, m former days, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, 
Roger Bacon, and a number of others, v/hose teaching at 
the universities was celebrated throughout the world. 
And even after Wycliffe's day there were schoolmen of 
liigh celebrity, such as his great theological opponent 
Thomas Netter of Walden, who was esteemed the prince 
•of controversialists. But there was no schoolman after 



3399. 



LiteraUt7'c and Science. 63 



Wycliffe who could be regarded as the originator of the 
philosophy which he defended in the schools. He was 
the last who had a system of his own. 

6. His followers increased rapidly in England, and, 
partly perhaps in consequence of the intercourse with 
Bohemia created by Richard's first marriage, his doctrines 
found a large amount of favour in that country also. O.f 
this we shall have occasion to take notice hereafter. In 
other countries the opinions of Wycliffe do not appear to 
have produced any perceptible effect. 

7. The whole learning of the age was contained in the 
writings of these schoolmen ; yet they had done little or 
nothing to advance that which forms so great Learning 

a study in our own day — natural science. ^""^ science. 
Some, like Roger Bacon, had made a remarkable number 
of experiments and pushed their inquiries into nature as 
well as into logic and mathematics, but nothing had yet 
been done to classify the results of repeated observations. 
The virtues of particular herbs were known, but botany 
had not yet been heard of, still less geology or mineralogy. 
Of chemistry there was no real knovvledge, but experi- 
ments were made in a kind of spurious science called 
alchemy, by which it was supposed that a process might 
one day be discovered of transmuting other substances 
into gold. Of astronomy, in hke manner, nothing was 
truly known, but there was a good deal of misdirected 
observation of astronomical facts, from the supposition 
that a man's fortune in life was influenced by the position 
of the planets at the time of his birth. Astrology, how- 
ever, did teach men to observe before the day of true 
science came. 

8. That the earth itself was a planet no one had any 
idea. It was believed to be the centre of the universe, 
round which the heavens revolved with all their hosts, 
the sun, moon, and planets making special circuits of 



64 Henry IV. ch. iv. 

their own. Wise men did indeed believe the earth to be 
a sphere, but no one had hitherto thought of attempting 
to reach the other side of it. Nothing was known of any 
lands west of the Atlantic or south of Central Africa; 
while the most remote country to the east was the distant 
Cathay or China, which had been visited by the great 
traveller Sir John Mandeville in the days of Edward III. 
Very little, however, was known of any part of Asia. The 
Genoese and Venetian merchants could extend their 
commerce no further than the Black Sea and the river 
Don, and the world which lay beyond excited very little 
interest. 



CHAITER IV. 

HENRY IV. 



I. The Revolution Completed — Invasion of Scotland. 

I. The reign of Richard II. was a series of reactions, in 
which each successive revolution undid the work of the 
last revolution and confirmed anew that of a 
...D. I J 9. former one. A new reign and a new dynasty 
had now begun, with a King who was not fitful, weak, or 
passionate, and who was not likely to suffer mob-law or 
confederacies to gain the upper hand with him. But the 
case was still the same as heretofore ; the first act of the 
new revolution was necessarily the annulling of the last. 
The new Parliament accordingly declared null and void 
revolution. ^^ whole proceedings of the Parliament of 
Shrewsbury, and confirmed again those of the Wonderful 
Parliament which the Parliament of Shrewsbury had 
declared null. The judgments upon the Duke of 
Gloucester and the Earls of Arundel and Waiwick were 
reversed, and those who had been accessory to the pro- 
ceedings against the duke were called to account for their 



1399- -^^^^ Revolution Completed. 65 

conduct. They one and all gave it as an excuse that 
they had acted under compulsion, and laid the blame 
upon the deposed King. On this a stoimy scene took 
place. Lord Fitzwalter maintained that the Duke of 
Albemarle's excuse was unti-ue, and offered to prove it so 
in combat. Lord Morley in like manner gave the Earl 
of Salisbur}' the lie. Other lords joined and threw down 
their gauntlets or their hoods as gages of the combat. 
No less than twenty pledges were thrown in support of 
the charge against Albemarle, and no one took his part 
except the Duke of Surrey. The gages, however, were 
given into the custody of the Constable and ^Marshal of 
England until the King should appoint a day of trial ; 
and meanwhile it was adjudged in Parliament that the 
lords who had appealed the Duke of Gloucester should 
be deprived of the dignities that had been conferred upon 
them after his death. Albemarle, Surrey, and Exeter 
were to be no longer dukes, but as they had been before. 
Earls of Rutland, Kent, and Huntingdon. John Beaufort, 
Marquis of Dorset, was to be no longer a marquis, and 
Spenser, Earl of Gloucester, was to lose his title entirely. 
Not a few were dissatisfied that they did not lose their 
heads as well. 

2. But it w^as ver}- necessar)- on all accounts that 
matters should not be pushed to extremity. Severe 
justice would not have suited the new King's policy, and 
appeals of treason which had already been the cause of 
so many revolutions threatened to make the 
peace of the kingdom hopeless for ever. An treason 
act was accordingly passed to mitigate the ^^^s^ted. 
evil by forbidding such appeals in Parliament. All trea- 
sons done within the realm were henceforth to be tried 
by law ; and where the crime was alleged to have been 
done abroad, the appeal was to be tried by the Constable 
and Marshal of England. At the same time the guilt of 

F 



66 Henry IV, 



CH. IV. 



treason was limited to offences that had been recognised 
as such by statute. It was also remembered that there 
had been arbitrary measures during the late reign which 
were not due to Richard himself. The shameful statute 
of the Merciless Parliament, making it treason in anyone 
to attempt to procure the repeal of its enactments, was 
annulled. Government by terror was henceforth to be 
disused. But the Commons were by no means invariably 
successful in obtaining redress for past abuses. When 
they petitioned for repayment of Richard's forced loans, 
and for remission of the heavy penalties incurred by the 
judges who had been so cruelly fined and banished for 
supporting Richard's prerogative, their requests were 
politely refused, with the answer Le Roy s'avisera. 

3. As to the late King Richard himself, he was nov/ 
a subject, and had been publicly declared in Parliament 
'PL,^ J guilty of serious m.isconduct. What was to 
posed King be done with him ? A deputation of lords, 
Richard. ^^'^^ ^^ Archbishop of Canterbury at their 
head, urged the King to put him to death, but Henry 
firmly refused to do so. Still, as he was no longer a 
sovereign, he was amenable to the judgment of the King 
and Parliament ; so it was decreed that he should be im- 
prisoned for life, and Henry shut him up in the castle of 
Pomfret. 

4. But not many months passed away before the King 
received intelligence of a formidable conspiracy against 

him in Richard's favour. It was formed by 
in his the degraded peers Rutland, Kent, and Hunt- 

avour. ingdon who had been formerly dukes, and 

Lord Spenser, formerly Earl of Gloucester, v/ith the Earl 
of Salisbury and some other noblemen, including the 
Bishop of Carlisle, who had always been a staunch friend 
to Richard. These all dined together in the chambers of 
the Abbot of Vv^cstminster a few days before Christmas, 



1400. TJic RevoliLtion Completed. 6j 

and set their seals to certain indentures promising to be 
faithful to one another in what they were to undertake. 
On Sunday, the 4th of January, they made an a.d. 1400. 
attempt to surprise the King at Windsor ; but January 4. 
one of their number had already betrayed the secret, and 
Henry had escaped to London. The traitor was the Earl 
of Rutland, formerly Duke of Albemarle, who had before 
shamefully abandoned Richard in the day of his adver- 
sity. The others, finding that the King was gone, very 
naturally took alarm. They, however, visited Richard's 
Queen at Sonning, near Reading, and passed on west- 
v/ard to Cirencester, proclaiming King Richard as they 
went along. But the mayor summoned the country people, 
attacked them in the middle of the night, and after some 
hours' fighting compelled them to surrender. The Earls of 
Kent and Salisbury were beheaded by the people ; Lord 
Spenser met with the same fate from the inhabitants of 
Bristol ; and the Earl of Huntingdon, who, apart from 
his confederates, had awaited the issue of the affair at 
London, having fled into the county of Essex, was taken 
and beheaded at Pleshy, the mansion of the murdered 
Duke of Gloucester. 

5. Every one of these executions vras an act of summary 
justice, the people taking the law into their own hands as 
they had done under Wat Tyler. But mob law, perhaps, \vas 
not displeasing to Henry when it tended to the suppres- 
sion of rebellion. He was unquestionably popular with 
the masses, who believed that he had been a victim of 
political perfidy in the preceding reign, and they warmly 
took his part against any attempt to bring back the 
detested tyrant of whose exactions they had formerly 
stood in dread. Indeed, Henry himself, after this, 
seems to have dismissed the scruples he had before pro- 
fessed to entertain about putting his rival to death. It 
would be rash, perhaps, to say that he distinctly autho- 



68 Henry IV. 



CH. IV. 



rised his murder ; but it appears pretty evident that he 
was no longer careful to preserve his life. Within little 
Death of more than a month after the rising, Richard died 
Richard II. jj^ Yi\s prison. It was pretended by some that on 
hearing of the failure of the conspiracy he wilfully starved 
himself to death ; but there is not a little reason to sus- 
pect that he was starved by his keepers. Another story, 
however, got abroad that he was assassinated by Sir Piers 
Exton. Whatever may have been the mode of death, 
his body was sent up to London and exposed to public 
view, with the face uncovered from the forehead down- 
wards. Funeral rites, attended by the King himself, 
were celebrated for him at St. Paul's, and he was buried 
at Langley. In the next reign the body was removed by 
order of Henry V. to Westminster, and was buried among 
the kings of England. 

6. Just after the death of Richard, Henry found him- 
self at war with Scotland. A Scottish nobleman, the 
Earl of March, disappointed of a hope held out to him 
by the Scotch king of marrying his daughter to the heir- 
apparent, and smarting besides from other injuries, had 
fled from his country and taken refuge with the Earl of 
Northumberland in England. From, the English Border 
he made inroads into Scotland, devastating the lands of 
his great rival the Earl Douglas, and King Robert III. 
made application to Henry for his surrender as a traitor. 
But Henry determined to anticipate the hostile measures 
of the Scots, and after renewing the old claims of his 
predecessors by summoning King Robert to come and da 
^ him homage as his vassal, marched an army 

invades across the Borders and invaded the northern 

Scotland. kingdom in person. The Scots, however, 
pursuing their usual policy, retired as he advanced ; 
and Henry marched on to Edinburgh without opposition. 
He laid siege to Edinburgh Castle, which was in the 



I400. 



Eastern Ajfairs, 69 



hands of the King's son, the Duke of Rothesay. An army 
under the Duke of Albany, the King's brother, who had 
been made governor of the kingdom, lay at some distance, 
ready to come to the rescue if occasion should require it ; 
but the Scots trusted to famine to compel the English to 
withdraw, and left them unattacked. This policy proved 
successful ; after a short time Henr>^ found it necessary 
to raise the siege of Edinburgh Castle and return home. 
The expedition in one sense was a failure ; but Henry 
had at least impressed the Scots with a sense of his 
warlike character. What is still more to his credit, he 
impressed them with a sense of his humanity by protecting 
the unoffending inhabitants from violence and outrage, 
a moderation of which former Vv'ars afforded them no 
experience. 

II. Eastern Affairs. 

I. When Henry had been a year upon the throne 
he received a visit from the Emperor of Constanti- 
nople, r^Ianuel Pal^ologus, who had traversed r^j^^ £j^_ 
Europe seeking aid from Christian princes peror of ^ 
against the Turks. The event was of a nopiein 
character quite unprecedented, and excited a ^"S^^^^- 
remarkable degree of interest. The Eastern potentate 
was met by the King at Blackheath and conducted with 
peculiar honours into London, where he was magnifi- 
cently entertained for the space of two or three months. 
The project of a crusade to the Holy Land was quite of 
a character to recommend itself to Henry, for he was 
deeply imbued with the notions of Christian chivalry. 
Even before he came to the throne, when he was only 
Earl of Derby, he had gone, like Chaucer's knight, against 
the infidels of Lithuania, and he doubtless regarded a 
visit to the Holy Land as the best atonement he could 
make for sin. But there were special circumstances at 



yo Henry IV. 



CIl. IV. 



this time which drew the attention of Europe towards the 
East more than had been the case since the great days of 
the Crusades. The cause of the Greek emperor who was 
Henr}^'s guest was the cause of Christianity in the East ; 
and never had the prospects of Christianity been a sub- 
ject of so much anxiety. The dominions of the Turk 
ah-eady covered the greater portion of the territory- that 
they do at the present day, while Constantinople itself 
was now all that remained of the once powerful Eastern 
empire. Yet even Constantinople had been besieged, 
and though not entirely won, a suburb had been actually 
given up to the enemy. Unless European princes would 
combine, a Christian empire in the East was a thing that 
could not live much longer. 

2. The Sultan by whose extraordinary energy these 
results had come about vvas Bajazet, the first of that 
Victorious name, appropriately surnamed Ilderim, or the 
Sukan°^'^^ Lightning. From the beginning of his reign 
Bajazet. in 13S9 he had been continually moving about 
at the head of armies, and men were amazed at the 
rapidity with which he passed and repassed between 
Europe and Asia, subduing petty Mahometan princes, or 
making war on the confines of Hungary against armies 
in which was gathered the flower of Christendom. In 
1396 he had defeated at Nicopolis an army of 100,000 
men under Sigismund, King of Hungary, who by an 
appeal to Europe had gathered to his standard many of 
the bravest knights in Germany and France. The greater 
part of that magnificent army was cut to pieces or driven 
into the Danube ; of the prisoners taken, all but twenty- 
four nobles were put to death ; and Sigismund himself, 
having escaped by water to Constantinople, only returned 
to Hungary after a long and perilous circuit. 

3. But there was another great conqueror in Asia 
whose achievements echpsed even those of Bajazet ; and 



I402. Eastern Ajjah^s, /i 

while Manuel was making fruitless appeals to the princes of 
Western Europe, Constantinople was saved from capture 
by a ^lahometan. Tim.our, commonly called Tamerlane 
Tamerlane, a native of Central Asia, was by ^^^ Tartar, 
birth a Tartar^ but a descendant of the great Mongol 
emperor Genghis Khan, the traditions of whose pov/er 
and greatness he was ambitious to revive. With a mind 
highly cultivated in miany respects, he was not neglectful 
of those practices by which Eastern despots knew hov/ to 
inspire respect. As monuments of his victories he would 
leave behind him pyramids of human heads. From his 
native district, not far south of Samarcand, he extended 
his dominions first on the side of Persia, which he com- 
pletely annexed to his rule. He then carried his arms 
into Eastern and Western Tartary, and made inroads 
into Russia nearly as far as Moscov/ ; after which he 
crossed the Indus, captured Delhi, and overran the 
Xorth-eastern provinces of India about the time that 
Henry IV. was ejecting Richard from the throne of 
England. But from India he was dravrn towards 
Georgia and the shores of the Black Sea by jealousy of 
the increasing power of Bajazet. He did not, however, 
at once come into open conflict vdth his rival. He made 
the Christians of Georgia tributary, took Sivas on the 
borders of Anatolia, then marched southwards, intending 
to make war upon the ?vlamelukes in Egypt ; but after 
the capture and destruction of Aleppo and Damascus he 
changed his plan, returned to the Euphrates, laid Bagdad 
in ruins, and erected upon its site a pyramid of 90,000 
heads. 

A. He now marched against Bajazet with an army of 
800,000 men, to which his rival could oppose but half the 
number. The two great conquerors met s-t ^ . r 
Angora in Asia Minor, where the army of Angora, 
Bajazet was completely overthrown and him.- ^'^°^* 



^2 Henry IV. 



CH. IV. 



self taken prisoner. A curious story is told of the inter- 
view which took place after the battle between the captive 
Sultan and his conqueror. Timour was lame from a wound 
in the thigh received in one of his early battles. Bajazet 
was blind. On seeing his prisoner, Timour, it is said, could 
not refrain from laughing. ' Surely,' he remarked, ' God 
does not hold the empires of this world in very high 
estimation when he commits them to a blind man like 
you and a lame one like myself ! ' 

5. There is a great deal of uncertainty as to many 
particulars connected with this victory. Accounts vary 
very much as to the day and month and even as to the year 
when the battle was fought ; but the most critical opinion 
seems to be that it was on July 28, 1402. The Emperor 
of Constantinople, who took his leave of the King of 
England and returned to the Continent in the spring of 
the preceding year, could scarcely have anticipated this 
good news ; but it is said that he had heard some en- 
couraging rumours before he left of successes in the East 
against the infidels and of the conversion of a large 
number of pagans to Christianity. There is no doubt, 
however, that the defeat of blind Bajazet by the limping 
Tamerlane was an immense relief to Europe. The 
Tartar despot was looked upon as if he were almost a 
Christian prince, and so highly was his victory esteemed 
that even Henry IV. wrote to him from England to con- 
gratulate him. 

III. Owe 11 Glendower's Rebellion and the Battle of 
Shrewsbiuy. 

I. At home, however, Henry was troubled with con- 
spiracies and rebellions from the very commencement of 
his reign ; nor did the death of his rival Richard render 
them less frequent. Not long after that event a rumour 



1402. Ozuen Glendower' s Rebellio/i. y^ 

got abroad that Richard was still alive and was R^jp^^^urs 
in Scotland. It seems that he had a chaplain spread that 
who resembled him in features, and many Richard is 
affected to believe that the body shown as his ^^^^^ ^^^^'^• 
was not really that of the deposed King. This shadow 
of King Richard was more troublesome to Henry than 
R.ichard himself could have been if he had lived. Re- 
peated proclamations were issued against the dissemi- 
nation of false news, but the reports were still propagated, 
and a man said to be Richard II. was maintained at the 
Court of Scotland to give England trouble. The rumour 
in fact was ver}^ readily listened to by many, and was 
found a very excellent means for nursing disaffection. 
Henry required the most incessant watchfulness and 
policy to guard himself against these intrigues. Even 
his own palace was not secure against a secret enemy. 
In 1 40 1 an iron with three spikes was laid in the King's 
bed. In 1402 a bastard son of the Black Prince named Sir 
Roger Clarendon and nine Franciscan friars were put to 
death for declaring that Richard was alive. And in the 
same year broke out the formidable rebellion of Owen 
Glendower in Wales. 

2. Since the day when it was conquered by Edward I. 
Wales had given the kings of England very little trouble. 
The Welsh remained loyal to the son and grandson of 
their conqueror, and were the most devoted friends of 
Richard II., even when he had lost the hearts of his 
English subjects. But on the usurpation of a.d. 1402. 
Henr>^ their allegiance seems to have been Power's ^^°' 
shaken : and Owen Glendower, who was de- rebellion, 
scended from Llewelyn, the last native prince of Wales, 
laid claim to the sovereignty of the countr}'. He 
ravaged the territory of Lord Grey of Ruthin, and took 
him prisoner near Snowdon ; then, turning southv/ards, 
overran Herefordshire and defeated and took prisoner 



74 Hem J IV. 



CH. IV. 



Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to that young Earl of 
March, who should have been heir to the crown after 
Richard according to the true order of descent. In this 
battle upwards of a thousand Englishmen v/ere slain, 
and such was the fierce barbarity of the victors that 
even the women of Wales mutilated the dead bodies 
in a manner too gross to be described, and left them 
unburied upon the field till heavy sums were paid for 
their intennent. 

3. It was necessar}^ to put down this revolt of Glen- 
dower, and the King collected an army and went against 
him in person. It was the beginning of September ; but 
ovving, as the people thought, to magical arts and enchant- 
ments practised by the Welshman, the army suffered dread- 
fully from tempests of wind, rain, snow, and hail before it 
could reach the enemy. In one night the King's tent was 
blown down, and he himself would have been killed if he 
had not retired to rest with his armour on. Finally the 
enterprise had to be abandoned. The Scots, meanwhile, 
thinking it a good opportunity to requite the King of 
England for his invasion of their country while his forces 
were engaged against the Welsh, made an irruption into 
Northumberland. They were, however, pursued on their 
retreat by the Earl of Northumberland and his son 
Henry Percy, commonly named Hotspur, who compelled 
AD 1402 them to come to an engagement at Homildon 
Battle of Hill near Wooler, when they were put to 
Hill, Sept. flight and their leader the Earl Douglas was 
^'^' taken prisoner. 

4. This success might have seemed a slight compen- 
sation for the failure of the expedition against Glendower ; 
but unfortunately the victors at Homildon Hill at this 
time found cause of offence with Henry. Of the two 
distinguished prisoners in Wales, the Lord Grey of Ruthin 
was ransomed by his friends for a sum of 10,000 marks ; 



1403. Owen Glcndowcrs Rebellion, 75 

but when the kinsmen of Sir Edmund Mortimer proposed 
to ransom him, the King expressly forbade them. He 
pretended that Mortimer had shown s^^mptoms of dis- 
affection, and had given himself up a willing prisoner to 
the King's enemies. The truth was, the young Earl of 
March was in the King's keeping, and Henry was not 
sorry that the only relation Avho could do much to 
advance his pretensions to the throne should be in the 
keeping of Owen Glendower. But this injustice only 
served to alienate some who had been the King's friends 
hitherto, among whom was Harry Hotspur ; for Hotspur 
had married Mortimer's sister. He entered into a secret 
understanding with the Welsh prince, and drew into the 
conspiracy his father, the Earl of Northumberland, and 
his uncle, Thomas Percy Earl of Worcester. 

5. It was a strange revolt, seeing that the Percys had 
been greatW instrumental to Henry's success against 
Richard. The reader, no doubt, has not forgotten the part 
taken by the Earl of Northumberland in bringing the de- 
posed King into Henry's power ; and Henry for his part 
exhibited such m^arks of confidence that he had committed 
to the Earl of Worcester the care of his son Henry Prince 
of Wales. But Worcester suddenly withdrew 
himself from Court and joined his nephew in the ' ' ^'^°^' 
north, w^here they published manifestoes still pretending 
loyalty, professing that they had only been driven to take 
up arms in self-defence, as there were certain abuses w^hich 
required reform, but owing to prejudices raised against 
them in the King's mind by their personal enemies, they 
dared not visit him. The King endeavoured to meet 
this by an offer of safe-conduct to Worcester and others, 
to come to him and return freely ; but instead of doing 
so, he and his nephew hastened towards Wales to join 
Glendower, spreading reports as they went that King 
Richard was alive and that they had taken up arms in 



76 He? try IV. 



CH. IV. 



his cause. The Percys had set their prisoner the Earl 
Douglas free, and expected that Owen Glendower would 
do the like to his prisoner, Sir Edmund Mortimer, and 
that they would all unite their forces against Henry. 
But the King was not unprepared, and having gathered 
a sufficient force, intercepted the march of the Percys 
at Shrewsbury. A very fierce and bloody 
Battle of battle took place, in which Hotspur was 
bury^July killed, the Earl Douglas again taken prisoner, 
^^- and the insurgents utterly defeated. The 

Earl of Worcester was beheaded at Shrewsbury after the 
fight, and Northumberland, who had not yet openly 
joined the rebels, on marching southwards, was stopped 
by an army under the Earl of Westmoreland, and v/ith- 
drew again into the north. The King afterwards coming 
to York commanded Northumberland to meet him, and 
ordered him into confinement for life as a traitor ; but a 
fev/ months later the earl obtained a full pardon, and his 
attainder was reversed in Parliament. 

6. Thus by a hard-won victory Henry had preserved 
himself upon a throne which he had acquired by intrigue 
and usurpation. But rebellion was not at an end. Glen- 
dower continued as troublesome as ever, and the King 
was unable from various causes to make much progress 
against him. At one time money could not easily be 
raised for the expedition. At another time, when he 
actually marched into the borders of Wales, 
A.D. 140D. j^.g a^(jvance was again impeded by the ele- 
ments. The rivers swelled to an unusual extent, and the 
army lost a great part of its baggage by the suddenness 
of' the inundation. The French, too, sent assistance to 
Glendower, and took Carmarthen Castle. Some time 
afterwards the King's son, Henry Prince of Wales, suc- 
ceeded in taking the castle of Aberystwith ; but 
A.D. 1407. ^^^^ soon after Owen Glendower recovered it 



1405. Owen Glcndoivcr s Rebellion. 77 

by stealth. In short, the Welsh succeeded in maintaining 
their independence of England during this whole reign, 
and Owen Glendower ultimately got leave to die in 
peace. 

7. Another source of danger to Henry was the young 
Earl of March, whom he kept in prison. Many sympa- 
thised with his cause and resented the treatment of a 
prince whose natural claim to the throne was much 
better than that of Henry himself. So by the aid of 
friends who procured forged keys, he and his a.d. 1405. 
brother m.ade their escape from Windsor February. 
Castle where they were confined ; but they were soon re- 
captured. New confederacies again sprang up in the 
north, to which, notwithstanding his pardon, ^ 

the Earl of Northum^berland became a party, rising in the 
His associates were Mowbray the Earl Mar- 
shal, who was the son of Henry's old rival the Duke of 
Norfolk, the Lord Bardolf, and Richard Scroop, Arch- 
bishop of York. This archbishop, a man much beloved 
by the people, was brother to one of King Richard's 
favourites — the Earl of Wiltshire, whom Henry had put 
to death at Bristol. His dislike of Henry's government 
was undisguised ; for he had accused the King of 
perjury and treason to King Richard, and had advocated 
the claims of the Earl of March. The confederates 
caused manifestoes to be set on the doors of churches 
and monasteries, and a considerable body of men gathered 
to their standard in Yorkshire. But the Archbishop and 
the Earl Marshal were entrapped into a conference with 
the Earl of Westmoreland, and were taken and be- 
headed at York. The former was venerated by the 
people as a martyr, and pilgrimages began to be made to 
his tomb, but were very speedily put down by order of 
the King. The Earl of Northumberland retired for a 
time into Scotland, but afterwards fled with Lord Bardolf 



78 Henry IV. 



CH. IV. 



into Wales ; from which country, two years after, these 
two noblemen escaped and raised an unsuc- 
''^^^ ' cessful rebellion in Yorkshire. The earl was • 
killed in battle and his head was stuck upon London 
Bridge. The Lord Bardolf was taken in the same hght, 
mortally wounded. 

IV. Capture of PriJice James of Scotland. 

T. Amid commotions such as these, nearly the whole 
reign of Henry IV. was spent. The intervals were few 
in which ' frighted peace ' could find a time 

To pant, 
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils. ^ 

However popular may have been Henry's usurpation, 
liowever arbitrary and tyrannical the government of his 
predecessor, the power of the Crown had been weakened 
l)y the fact of a usurpation having taken place. And 
young as Henry v\^as when he assumed the crov/n — for 
lie was exactly the same age as his cousin Richard whom 
he displaced — these repeated rebellions overtaxed his 
-energies and wore out his strength prematurely. They 
also compelled him, much against his will, to make con- 
tinual application to Parliament for supplies, vrhich Vv'ere 
often grudgingly and insufficiently conceded. An extra- 
Heavy ordinary subsidy was granted to him by the 
taxation. Parliament which met in the beginning of the 
year 1404, in which everyone who held lands of the value 
of twenty shillings and upwards was charged a shilling in 
the pound on the annual value. But this concession was 
made with a special request that it might not be drawn 
into a precedent, and with the very peculiar stipulation 
that the records of the receipt of the money might be 

1 Shakespeare's 'Henry IV.,' Part I. 



1404. Capture of Prince James of Scotland, 79 

destroyed as soon as it was gathered in. Yet the pro- 
ceeds of the tax proved quite inadequate to meet the 
pressing wants of the King's exchequer ; and in October 
of the very same year another Parhament was called, to 
meet at Coventr>'. This Parliament, owing to the mode 
in which it was elected, and possibly by the character of 
some of its proposals, gained for itself the name of the 
Lack-learning Parliament. A clause was inserted in the 
writs of summons, requiring that no lawyer should be 
returned in any county as Icnight of the shire. WTien 
the question of supply came before the Commons it was 
thought that the readiest way to relieve an overtaxed 
people was to throw the burdens of the nation upon the 
clergy, and a general confiscation of the property of the 
Church was seriously recommended. This brought about 
a collision between the two Houses ; but the Chancellor, 
Archbishop Arundel, altogether confuted the arguments 
in which the Speaker of the House of Commons endea- 
voured to show that the clerg}- did not contribute their 
fair share to the national burdens, and the proposal had 
to be abandoned. Two tenths and tv/o fifteenths were 
then voted in its place. 

2. To strengthen himself on his unsteady throne, 
Henr\^ courted alliances with foreign princes by marriage 
and other means. Soon after the beginning Foreign 

of his reign, he himself, being then a widower, alliances. 
married Joan of Xavarre, widov/ of Simon de ^Nlontfort, 
Duke of Brittany. He had already, by his former wife 
i\Iary de Bohun, four sons and two daughters ; and he 
married his eldest daughter Blanche to Levris of Bavaria, 
eldest son of the Emperor Rupert, in the very same year 
in which he himself took a second wife. Some time 
afterwards he married his second daughter Philippa to 
Eric IX., King of Denmark. 

3. But fortune threw into Henr}-'s hands an advantage 



So Henry IV, 



CH. IV. 



to which he could not have attained by mere diplomacy. 
Of all the foreign powers whose enmity he had to fear, 
Scotland, though certainly one of the least, might have 
given him the most annoyance. It was Scotland that 
harboured the false King Richard, and which received 
with open arms the Earl of Northumberland and other 
Englishmen whenever they were disaffected towards their 
sovereign. Yet the only security against Scotland hitherto 
lay in the doubtful fidelity of the northern lords, — men 
like Northumberland himself or Westmoreland, un- 
scrupulous and changeable, who feeling themselves 
masters of the situation, fought for their sovereign or 
conspired against him as they pleased. But in the year 
1405 an incident occurred which at once relieved Henry 
of all anxiety about the Scots for the remainder of his 
days. 

4. Scotland at this time was in a deplorable con- 
dition. Robert III., who is characterised by historians 
as a well-intentioned king, was singularly de- 
void of energy. His brother, the Duke of 
Albany, whom he himself had named as governor, secretly 
aspired to the succession, but the King relied upon him 
with a blind confidence. David, Duke of Rothesay, the 
heir apparent, was a dissolute, licentious prince, and his 
intrigues with married ladies occasioned so much scandal 
that the King thought proper to commit him to the keep- 
ing of his uncle. Albany imprisoned the young man in 
his own castle at Falkland in Fife, where he 
• ^^°^* was miserably starved to death in a dungeon. 
It is said that two women for some days protracted his 
unhappy life ; the one by covertly passing through the 
narrow window of his cell supplies of oatmeal cakes ; the 
other, a country nurse, by conveying milk from her own 
breast to his mouth through a tube. But they were both 
detected and put to death. The poor King was over- 



1405. CapUtrc of Prince Javies of Scotland, 81 

whelmed with grief at the news of his son's murder, but 
Albany had a plausible story to lay the guilt on others, 
and was too powerful to be brought to justice. All that 
the King could do was to provide for the safety of his 
second son James ; and on taking advice of such as he 
believed trustworthy, he resolved to send him to France 
to be educated at the court of Charles VI. 
Accompanied by one or two Scotch noblemen, "' * ^^^^' 
the young prince set sail from the Bass rock at the mouth 
of the Frith of Forth. On his passage he came near the 
English coast, or, as some say, was driven to land. Not- 
withstanding that a truce then existed between prince 
the two realms, he was taken by some Norfolk James of 

•1 1-11 TT 1 • 1 Scotland 

sailors and brought to Henry, who seemg the taken by- 
importance of this capture, resolved to detain ^^^ Engnsh. 
him. He had been provided with letters from his father 
to the King, to be used in case of his landing in England ; 
but Henry jestingly remarked that if the Scots had been 
friendly they would have sent the young man to him for 
his education, as he knew the French tongue quite as well 
as King Charles. 

5. The news of this final calamity was too much for 
the old King of Scots, who died the third day after it was 
reported to him. The government of Scotland, though not 
the name of king, fell into the hands of the Duke of Albany, 
who was by no means anxious that the captive should be set 
free. Henry, however, made the detention of the young 
prince as little galling to him as possible, and gave him 
an excellent education, of which Scotland in after days, 
reaped the benefit. He was the first of the Scotch kings 
named James, and was distinguished not only as a very 
enlightened king but as a poet, some of whose works 
v/ere above mediocrity. 



82 Henry IV, 



CH. IV. 



V. T/te Church — Fratch Affairs — Death of Henry IV, 

I. King Henry was now solicited to take part along 
with France in putting an end to the papal schism which 
^^ ^. had so lone^ troubled the world. On the death 

The schism ^ ____. -. ti 

in the of Pope Innocent VII. m 1406, the cardinals 

papacy. ^^ Rome, before proceeding to a new election, 

made a compact that whoever should be elected Pope 
should abdicate if the anti-Pope would do the same, so 
as to allow the rival colleges to coalesce in the election 
of one pontiff. The election fell upon the Cardinal St. 
Mark, who thereupon assumed the title of Gregory XII., 
and bound himself by oath after his election to fulfil the 
agreement to which he had already given his consent 
as cardinal. He accordingly a few months later made 
preparations to go to Savona, where he was to hold a 
conference with his rival as to the proposed renunciation 
of their dignities. But the King of Naples took advantage 
of his intended departure to march on Rome ; and though 
he was driven back by Paolo Orsini, the occurrence served 
as an excuse to the Pope for not fulfilling his engage- 
ment. After a time it became evident that the Pope had 
no real intention to resign, and the Cardinal of Bordeaux 
was sent over to England by the college at Avignon to 
represent the bad faith of Pope Gregory and to solicit 
Henry's assistance in referring the affairs of the Church 
to a general council to be held at Pisa. To this Henry 
readily agreed, and with the general consent of Christen- 
dom the council was held at Pisa in 1409, when both 
Pope Gregory and the anti-Pope were deposed, and a 
new pope elected who took the name of Alexander V. 

2. At this time the religious condition of England 
was still very strongly affected by the teaching of \Vy- 



141 1. 'TJie Church — French Ajfairs, etc, 83 

cliffe. The influence of his opinions, however, was not 
quite what it had been. In the days of King Richard it 
was said that you could hardly see two persons together 
in the street but one of them was a Lollard. John of 
Gaunt was their avowed protector, and seems to have 
been himself a disciple of the bold reformer. And not- 
v.-ithstanding papal censures, the teaching of the Lollards 
was not in Richard's time visited with civil penalties. 
But when Henry came to the throne he found the neces- 
sity of supporting the authority of the Church. The 
clerg}', too, were recovering their influence, and the 
votaries of Lollard doctrines were chiefly among the 
laity. Before the King had been two years upon the 
throne a \^rw severe enactment was passed against heresy, 
by which for the first time it was ordained that a heretic 
should be committed to the flames. A case Heretics 
immediately occurred for putting this cruel ^"^^^^d- 
statute into eftect, and a clerg\'man named William 
Sawtre was burned in Smithfield as a Lollard. Nine 
years later a still more cruel case occurred at the same 
place of execution. A smith named Thomas Badby was 
burned for denying the Real Presence. The King's 
eldest son, Prince Henrr, was present on the scene and, 
probably out of real compassion for the sufferer, endea- 
voured to persuade him to recant. This he steadily 
refused to do, and allowed himself to be closed in and 
the fire lit around him. In the midst of the flames, 
however, his courage failed, and he cried out for mercy. 
The Prince ordered the burning heaps to be removed 
and the man extricated ; then promised, if he would 
retract his heresy, to give him threepence a day for life. 
But the poor man was now ashamed of his weakness, 
and refused to accept the prince's bounty. He was there- 
fore again shut up and perished in the fire. 

3. Nevertheless, the repeated attacks made in Par- 



84 Henry IV. ch. iv. 

liament on the possessions of the clergy evince a strong 
feehng of animosity against the Church which must 
Proposals to ^^^'^ been due to the prevalence of Lollard 
confiscate opinions in the community. We have already 
sio^ns°o?th'e noticcd the proposal of the Lack-learning 
clergy. Parliament for the confiscation of the Church's 

property. Although that proposal v/as withdrawn for 
the time it was renewed six years afterwards, and a bill 
to that effect actually passed the Commons at the very 
time that Badby suffered at Smithfield. It was seriously 
represented to the King that the revenues of the bishops, 
abbots, and priors were sufficient to maintain fifteen earls, 
Ij5oo knights, and 6,200 esquires for the defence of the 
kingdom, besides 100 hospitals for the care of the infirm. 
The measure was rejected by the Lords, owing mainly to 
the opposition of Prince Henry ; but the Commons did 
not desist from their efforts to impair the privileges of 
the Church. They first proposed to abolish episcopal 
jurisdiction in the case of clerical convicts ; for it was at 
this time the privilege of bishops to retain in their own 
prisons clergymen who had been CQnvicted of any crimes. 
Afterwards they endeavoured to procure a mitigation of 
the severe law already passed against the Lollards by 
which anyone found preaching heresy might be committed 
to prison without the King's writ or warrant. But all 
their efforts in these directions proved totally ineffectual. 
4. Scarcely anything of domestic interest occurred 
during the last few years of Henry's reign. But the events 
which took place in the neighbouring kingdom of France 
were such as to excite no small degree of interest, and they 
had a most important bearing on the history of the succeed- 
ing reign. France was at this time torn by internal discords. 
For many years King Charles VL — the same king who, 
being yet a young man, had assembled the great fleet at 
Sluys that w^as to have conquered England, had been 



141 3- ^^^^ CJmrch — French Affairs, etc, 85 

afflicted with hopeless insanity. His queen, Isabel of 
Bavaria, left him helpless in his malady, and lived in 
shameless adultery with Louis Duke of Orleans, who, 
being the King's own brother, aspired to govern eveiy- 
thing. He v/as, however, hated by the Parisians for his 
immoralities, and more than all, for reasons personal and 
political, he was hated by the Duke of Burgundy, who 
w^as powerful over all the northern parts of France. On 
November 23, 1407, the Duke of Orleans was murdered 
in the streets of Paris, and when inquiry was made into 
the circumstances of the crime the Duke of Burgundy 
confessed that it had been done at his instigation. It v/as 
an act of peculiar treachery, for a seeming reconciliation 
had just been effected between the rivals, who had taken 
the sacrament together the previous Sunday and had 
agreed to dine together on the Sunday following. A son of 
the Duke of Orleans succeeded to his father's title and 
bent every effort to revenge his murder ; but the King of 
France, under the guidance of his son, the heir-apparent, 
who had been entirely alienated from the Orleanist party 
.and from his own mother, favoured the party of his oppo- 
nent. The young Duke of Orleans, however, strengthened 
jiim.self by m.arrying a daughter of the Count of Annagnac, 
.and his Vv'hole party became known as the party of the 
Annagnacs. In short, these private feuds became 
national, and separated for many years the north and 
south of France into two hostile factions. During the 
days of Henry IV. the English at first favoured the party 
of the Duke of Burgundy, and a body of Englishmen 
helped to defeat the Orleanists in an engagement at St. 
Cloud. But afterwards the Duke of Orleans sent an 
embassy to England and induced Henry to send aid to 
him and abandon the party of his rival. 

5. Things v.-ere in this state when Henr\' IV. died on 
3, [arch 20, 141 3. For years he had been subject to epi- 



86 Henry V, ch. v. 

leptic fits, brought on, doubtless, by the pressure of con- 
stant anxieties. Not only had his reign been troubled with 
Death of incessant rebellions, but many conspiracies 
Henry IV. ^idid. been formed against his life. Some- 
times the attempt had been made to put poison in his 
food ; at other times his hose or his shirt was smeared 
with venom ; sharp irons were cunningly laid within his 
bed, and other subtle means were employed to put an end 
to him. Secret enemies evidently lurked within his house- 
hold and filled him with continual fear. Cutaneous erup- 
tions also broke out upon his face, which some regarded as 
a judgment of God for the murder of Archbishop Scrope. 
His last attack overtook him in Westminster Abbey. He 
was carried into the abbot's lodging and expired in the 
Jerusalem Chamber, — the event, we are told, being re- 
garded as the fulfilment of a misunderstood prophecy, 
which said that he was to die at Jerusalem. It was doubt- 
less a real aspiration of Henry's to have ended his life in 
the Holy Land. 



CHAPTER V. 

HENRY V. 

I. Oldcastle and the Lollards, 

I . Henry, the eldest son of the deceased King — a young 
man of six-and-twenty — succeeded at once to 
■ ^^^^' the crown which it had cost his father so much 
anxiety to keep. It is said that the latter, while he 
Warlike ^"^^ upon his death-bed, demanded of his heir- 

character of apparent how he proposed to defend such an 
^"^ • ill-gotten possession ; upon which the youn^ 
prince replied that he would trust for that to his sword. 



I4I3- Oldcasile and the Lollards. Zy 

as his father had done before him. This poHcy he pur- 
sued most successfully throughout his rather brief reign, 
and by brilHant achievements in arms and foreign con- 
quest made the -world forget the original weakness of the 
Lancastrian title. Aheady he had distinguished himself 
by his bravery in the war against Glendower, and more 
particularly in the battle of Shrewsbury, where he was 
wounded in the face with an arrow. His attendants 
would have carried him off the field, but he insisted 
rather on being led to the front of the battle to animate 
his followers ; and it was probably his personal prowess 
that day that determined the issue. The Welsh, who had 
been so troublesome to his father, admired his valour and 
claimed him as a true prince of Wales, remembering that 
he had been bom at Monmouth, which place was at that 
time within the principality. They discovered that there 
was an ancient prophecy that a prince would be born 
among themselves who should rule the whole realm of 
England ; and they saw its fulfilment in King Henry V. 

2. He was popular besides for other things than 
braver}% Young and handsome, w4th abundance of 
animal spirits, he delighted in feats of agility and 
strength. He was tall and slender in person, with rather 
a long neck and small bones — a frame admirably adapted 
to nimble exercises. So swift was he in running that he 
could run down and capture a wild buck in a park with- 
out dogs, bow, or weapon of any sort. His mental en- 
dowments, too, were above the average, and he had 
received an excellent education. He delighted in songs 
and music, was very affable, and mixed readily with the 
people ; nor could he be restrained by the dull decorum 
of the court, like the heir-apparent of a long- His early 
settled d\Tiasty. On many occasions he had ^^^^• 
displayed a love of frolic which gave rise to some degree 
of scandal. Sometimes he and his companions in dis- 



88 Henry V. 



CH. V. 



guise would waylay his own receivers and rob them of 
the rents they had collected from his tenants. When the 
receivers came to account with him afterwards he would 
enjoy their mortification in telling how they had lost the 
money, until he declared by whom they had been robbed 
and gave them a full discharge, with special rewards to 
those who had offered him the most valiant resistance. 
At another time one of his riotous comrades was brought 
before the Chief Justice for transgression of the law. The 
prince attended at the trial, and demanded that the 
offender should be set free. The judge refused to comply, 
observing that the prince might be able to obtain a par- 
don from the King his father, but that for his own part 
he must administer justice according to the laws. Young 
Henry, who was not satisfied to adopt such a round- 
about method of procedure, threatened to rescue the 
man and laid his hand upon his sword, or, as some 
wTiters say, struck the Chief Justice with his fist. The 
judge, however, showed himself unmoved, and commutted 
the prince to prison for contempt of court. This firmness 
produced a marked effect. The prince, who had a real 
respect for authority, became at once submissive and 
allowed himself to be taken into custody. And the King 
his father, being informed of the incident, thanked God 
for having given him so upright a judge and so obedient 
a son. 

3. When he came to the throne he at once made it 
evident that it was from no insensibility to his high future 
destiny that he had indulged so freely the frolicsome 
Hedis- humours of his youth. The m.en who had 

misses his been the companions of his pleasures he im- 
compamons. ^^y^g^jig^^-giy dismissed, giving them presents, 
but at the same time commanding them never again to 
come within ten miles of the Court. On the other hand, 
he took at once into his confidence the ministers of his 



1413. Oldcastlc and tJie Lollards. 89 

father, and showed a sagacity in the discussion of state 
affairs which they had not expected to find in a young 
man who had shown himself so fond of amusement. 
Everyone perceived that he was altogether an altered 
man, and ever>'one was loud in the praises of his wisdom, 
modesty, and virtue. 

4. One party among his subjects, however, gave the 
new King trouble at the ver)^ commencement of his reign. 
From his conduct at the execution of Thomas Badby, 
the Lollards possibly may have expected to find in him a 
friend and protector. The chief man among gj^. j^^^ 
them. Sir John Oldcastle (vv^ho, though re- oidcastie, a 
membered afterwards chiefly by his family of°he^ °^ 
surname, was by right of his wife Lord Cob- bollards. 
ham), belonged to the royal household, and was greatly 
esteemed by Henry for his integrity of character. But, 
either being disappointed in the King, or presuming too 
much on the influence of Lord Cobham, they began to 
put up seditious papers on the doors of the London 
churches, stating that a hundred thousand men would 
rise in arms against all who were not of their way of 
thinking. By this the clergy were stirred into activity, 
and in a convocation held at London it was found that 
the Lollards had been instigated to various irregularities 
by the protection afforded to them by Oldcastle. He 
had stirred up men to preach in various places v/ith- 
out their having received a licence from their bishops, 
and had put down by violence all v/ho protested against 
this irregularity, declaring that the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury and his suffragans had no right to make any regu- 
lations on the subject. He had also put forth opinions 
opposed to the teaching of the Church as to the Sacra- 
ment, penance, pilgrimages, the worship of images, and 
the power of the keys. 

5. The clergy in convocation accordingly called upon 



go Heniy V, ch. \- 

the Archbishop of Canterbury to take proceedings against 
Oldcastle. The primate, however, with a deputation 
Proceedings ^^ ^^^ clcrgy, first Waited upon the King 
against him at Kennington. At Henry's request the 

ereby. ^i^i^ter was for some time put off in order that 
he might use his own personal influence to induce Old- 
castle to desist from his opposition to the Church. But 
the King's efforts were useless ; and the archbishop at 
length, with the King's consent, issued a citation against 
the offender. The messenger brought it to Cowling 
Castle in Kent, where Lord Cobham then resided, but 
the latter would not allow it to be served upon him, and 
it was posted on the doors of Rochester Cathedral. As 
he refused to appear on the day named, he was excom- 
municated as contumacious, and the King caused him to 
be apprehended and committed to the Tower. From 
thence he was brought in custody of the Lieutenant of 
the Tower before a spiritual court at St. Paul's, when the 
archbishop offered to absolve him from the sentence of 
excommunication. But Oldcastle declined to ask for 
absolution, and, turning to another subject, said he was 
ready to declare to the archbishop the articles of his 
behef. 

6. On this he drew from his bosom an indented 
parchment, read out the contents, and laid it before the 
Court. The archbishop said that the substance of his 
confession was orthodox enough, but that it did not con- 
tain anything explicit on the subject of those heresies that 
he was accused of propagating, and he desired that he 
would explain particularly his opinions touching the 
sacrament of the altar and the sacrament of penance. 
Oldcastle replied that he w^ould make no further answer 
on these points than was contained in the document he 
had given in. The archbishop then set before him the 
opinions of St. Augustine and other saints, vdiich he said 



I4I4- Oldcastle and the Lollards, 91 

had been adopted by the Church, and which all good 
Catholics ought to accept. Oldcastle answered that he 
wished to believe in whatever Holy Church had detep- 
mined and God had enjoined ; but that the pope and 
cardinals and the bishops of the Church had any au- 
thority to decide these points he could not admit. 

7. Being examined a second day he at length gave a 
pretty full statement of his opinions, and among other 
things declared that the pope, bishops, and friars consti- 
tuted the head, members, and tail of Antichrist. After 
this the decision of the tribunal could not be doubtful. 
The courts and officers of the Church wxre unable to 
inflict any punishment on an offender except excommuni- 
cation ; but he was pronounced a heretic and delivered 
over, as the expression vv^as, to the secular arm. Under 
the law passed in the preceding reign he was thus liable 
to be burnt ; but his judges interceded with the King to 
grant him forty days' respite, during which it was hoped 
he might recant. During this interval, however, he 
effected his escape from the Tower, and very shortly 
afterwards his followers occasioned more than usual 
trouble. So many persons were apprehended for se- 
dition and heresy that the gaols of London were full, and 
rumours of a most alarming conspiracy reached the King 
soon after Christmas. 

8. A large meeting of Lollards from various parts of 
the kingdom had been secretly arranged to meet by night 
in St. Giles's Fields near London. Thousands Conspirac 
of apprentices from the city were expected to of the 
join it. The design was said to be to seize, 

if not put to death, the King and his brothers, to pro- 
claim Oldcastle Regent, and to destroy the monasteries 
of Westminster and St. Alban's, St. Paul's, and the houses 
of the friars in London. Oldcastle himself w^as expected 
to be present at the muster and to put himself at the head 



92 Heiiry V, 



CH. V. 



of the insurgents. The world, perhaps, had yet to be con- 
vinced that the young King was competent to rule with a 
strong hand and maintain the House of Lancaster upon the 
throne of England. But Henry was fully equal to the 
A.D. 1414, emergency. The meeting, he learned, was to 
Jan. 7. |.^^^ place on Sunday night after Twelfth Day. 

He quietly removed from Eltham, where he had been 
"keeping his Christmas, to the palace at Westminster, and 
there ordered a body of followers under arm.s to ac- 
company him by night to the place of meeting. He at 
the same time commanded the gates of the city to be 
securely kept, so as to prevent anyone from leaving. On 
the news of his approach the rebels were thrown into 
consternation. A number of them, were killed, and others 
taken prisoners. What became of Oldcastle, or whether 
he had actually been there, no one knew. The King 
offered a reward of 1,000 marks for his apprehension ; 
but he was a popular hero, and no one could be induced 
to betray him. His unhappy followers were speedily put 
to execution ; and some, who had been condemned for 
heresy as well as sedition, were not only hanged, but 
iDurnt at the same time, with the gallows from which they 
Avere suspended. 

II. The War with France and the Battle of Agincourt, 

I. During the first year of Henry's reign the unhappy 
King of France was induced to appeal to England and 
other countries against rebels within his own kingdom, 
lest they should obtain the assistance of foreign govern- 
ments. We have already shown hov/ the French nation 
-was divided into the two hostile factions of the Burgun- 
•dians and the Armagnacs. But within the city of Paris 
a still more dangerous party was formed out of the popu- 
lace with a few of the leading butchers at their head. 
From the name of their ringleader, one Caboche, vvhose 



1414. ^/^^ IVar zuith France, 95 

occupation consisted in flaying slaughtered animals, they 
were called the Cabochians. They wore white scarfs or 
hoods, and were at flrst secretly encouraged r^^^ ^^^^_ 
by the party of the Burgundians. But they chiansin 
soon became so powerful that for a time all 
authority was suspended. Paris lay at their mercy, and 
scenes were enacted not unlike those which had been 
witnessed in London under Wat Tyler. They took pos- 
session of the Bastille, broke into the house of the 
Dauphin, Louis Duke of Guienne, forced themselves into 
the King's presence, and took and imprisoned the Queen's 
brother, the Duke of Bavaria, with the Duke of Bar, a 
prince of the Blood Royal, all the ministers of state, and 
several ladies of the court. The King was obliged to 
wear in public a v/hite scarf and to make ordinances for 
the reform of abuses, while the bodies of some unpopular 
noblemen and ministers, who were alleged by the in- 
surgents to have put an end to their own lives, were ex- 
hibited upon a gibbet. 

2. This revolution took place at the end of April in 
the year 141 3, Httle more than a month after the death of 
Henry IV. of England. The government of the Cabo- 
chians, however, did not last long. The princes of the 
Blood and the university of Paris combined to put an 
end to their usurpation. Order was restored under the 
Duke of Orleans, to whom the King now gave his confi- 
dence, and the Duke of Burgundy withdrew into Flan- 
ders. The war between the two factions was renewed,, 
and each party sought to strengthen itself by an alliance 
with England. Henry, for his part, saw his Henn-tak'-s. 
advantage in the divided state of the country, advantage 
and negotiated with both parties at one and divisions in 
the same time. He even sent and received ^^^^c^- 
embassies to and from both parties on the subject of 
his own marriage, proposing on the one hand to ally 



94 Henry V, ch. v. 

himself with a daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, on the 
other, with a daughter of the King of France. At length 
he suddenly revived the claim made by Edward III., 
asserted his own right to the French crown, and required 
Charles at once to yield up possession of his kingdom, or 
at least to make -immediate surrender of all that had been 
ceded to England by the treaty of Bretigni (see Map I.), 
together with the- duchy of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and 
a number of other provinces. 

3. The claim made by Edward III. to the French 
crown had been questionable enough. That of Henry 
His claim ^^^ Certainly most unreasonable. Edward 
to -the had maintained that though the Salic law, 

-ing om. ^vhich governed the succession in France, ex- 
cluded females from the throne, it did not exclude their 
male descendants. On this theory Edw^ard himself was 
doubtless the true heir to the P'rench monarchy. But even 
admitting the claims of Edward, his rights had certainly 
not descended to Henry V., seeing that even in England 
neither he nor his father was true heir to the throne by 
lineal right. A war with France, however, was sure to 
be popular with his subjects, and the weakness of that* 
country from civil discord seemed a favourable oppor- 
tunity for urging the most extreme pretensions. 

4. To give a show of fairness and moderation the 
English ambassadors at Paris lessened their demands 
more than once, and appeared willing for some time to 
renew negotiations after their terms had been rejected. 
But in the end they still insisted on a claim, which in 
point of equity was altogether preposterous, and rejected 
a compromise which would have put Henry in possession 
of the whole of Guienne and given him the hand of the 
French king's daughter Catherine with a marriage por- 
tion of 800,000 crowns. Meanwhile Henry was making 
active preparations for war, and at the same time carried 



1415. The War zvith France. 95 

on secret negotiations with the Duke of Burgundy, trust- 
ing to have him for an ally in the invasion of France. 

5. At length in the summer of 141 5 the King had col- 
lected an army and was ready to embark at Southampton. 
But on the eve of his departure a conspiracy 
was discovered, the object of which was to ' ^^^^' 
dethrone the King and set aside the House of Lancaster. 
The conspirators were Richard Earl of Cambridge, Henr>' 
Lord Scrope of Masham, and a knight of Northumber- 
land named Sir Thomas Grey. The Earl of Cambridge was 
the King's cousin-german, and had been recently raised to 
that dignity by Henr>^ himself. Lord Scrope was, to all 
appearance, the King's most intimate friend and coun- 
sellor. The design seems to have been formed upon the 
model of similar projects in the preceding reign. Richard 
II. was to be proclaimed once more as if he had been 
stin alive ; but the real intention was to procure the 
crown for Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the true 
heir of Richard whom Henr}' IV. had set aside. At the 
same time the Earl of March himself seems hardly to 
have countenanced the attempt ; but the Earl of Cam- 
bridge, who had married his sister, wished, doubtless, to 
secure the succession for his son Richard, as the Earl of 
[March had no children. Evidently it was the impression of 
some persons that the House of Lancaster was not even 
yet firmly seated upon the throne. Perhaps it was not 
even yet apparent that the young man who had so recently 
been a gamesome reveller, was capable of ruling with a 
firm hand as king. 

6. But aU doubt on this point was soon terminated. 
The conspirators were tried by a commission hastily 
issued, and were summarily condemned and put to death. 
The Earl of March, it is said, revealed the plot to the 
King, sat as one of the judges of his t^vo brother peers, 
and was taken into the King's favour. The Earl of 



96 Henry V, 



CH. V. 



Cambridge made a confession of his guilt. Lord Scrope, 
though he repudiated the imputation of disloyalty, ad- 
mitted having had a guilty knowledge of the plot, which 
he said it had been his purpose to defeat. The one 
nobleman, in consideration of his royal blood was simply 
beheaded ; the other was drawn and quartered. We 
hear of no more attempts of the kind during Henry's 
reign. 

7. With a fleet of 1,500 sail Henry crossed the sea 
and Janded without opposition at Chef de Caux, near 
Harfleur, at the mouth of the Seine. The force that he 
brought with him was about 30^000 men, and he immedi- 
ately employed it in laying siege to Harfleur. The place 
was strong, so far as walls and bulwarks could make it, 
but it was not well victualled, and after a five weeks' 

siege it was obliged to capitulate. But the 
forces of the besiegers were thinned by dis- 
ease as well as actual fighting. Dysentery had broken 
out in the camp, and, though it was only September, they 
suffered bitterly from the coldness of the nights ; so that 
when the towm had been won and garrisoned, the force 
available for further operations amounted to less than 
half the original strength of the invading army. Under 
the circumstances it was hopeless to expect to do much 
before the w^inter set in, and many counselled the King 
to return to England. But Henry could not tolerate the 
idea of retreat or even of apparent inaction. He sent a 
challenge to the Dauphin, offering to refer their diffe- 
rences to single combat ; and w^hen no notice was taken 
of this proposal, he determined to cut his way, if possible, 
through the country to Calais, along with the remainder 
of his forces. 

8. It was a difficult and hazardous march. Hunger, 
dysentery, and fever had already reduced the little band 
to less than 9,000 men, or, as good authorities say, to 



141 5. Tlie War with France, 97 

little more than 6,000. The country people were un- 
friendly, their supplies were cut off on all sides, and the 
scanty stock of provisions with which they set out was 
soon exhausted. For want of bread many were driven 
to feed on nuts, while the enemy harassed them upon the 
way and broke down the bridges in advance of them. 
On one or two occasions having repulsed an attack from 
a garrisoned town, Henry demanded and obtained from 
the governor a safe-conduct and a certain quantity of 
bread and wine, under threat of setting fire to the place 
if refused. In this manner he and his army gradually 
approached the river Somme at Blanche Tache, where 
there was a ford by which King Edward III. had crossed 
before the battle of Cressy. But while yet some distance 
from it, they received information from a prisoner that 
the ford was guarded by 6,000 fighting men, and though 
the intelligence was untrue, it deterred him from attempt- 
ing the passage. They accordingly turned to the right 
and went up the river as far as Amiens, but were still 
unable to cross, till, after following the course of the river 
about fifty miles further, they fortunately came upon an 
undefended ford and passed over before their enemies 
were aware. 

9. Hitherto their progress had not been without ad- 
ventures and skirmishes in many places. But the main 
army of the French only overtook them when they had 
arrived within about forty-five miles of Calais. On the 
night of the 24th of October they were posted at the 
village of Maisoncelles, with an enemy before them five 
or six times their number, who had resolved to stop their 
further progress. Both sides prepared for battle on the 
following morning. The English, besides being so much 
inferior in numbers, were wasted by disease and famine, 
while their adversaries were fresh and vigorous, with a 
plentiful commissariat. But the latter were over-confi- 

H 



98 Henry V, ch. v. 

dent. They spent the evening in dice-playing and 
making wagers about the prisoners they should take ; 
while the English, on the contrary, confessed themselves 
and received the sacrament. Heavy rain fell during the 
night, from which both armies suffered ; but Henry 
availed himself of a brief period of moonlight to have the 
ground thoroughly surveyed. His position was an ad- 
mirable one. His forces occupied a narrow field hemmed 
in on either side by hedges and thickets, so that they 
could only be attacked in front, and were in no fear of 
being surrounded. Early on the following 
^' morning Henry rose and heard mass ; but 

the two armies stood facing each other for some hours, 
each waiting for the other to begin. The English archers 
The Battle ^ere drawn up in front in the form of a wedge, 
of Agin- and each man was provided with a stake shod 

with iron at both ends, which being fixed into 
the ground before him, the whole line formed a kind of 
hedge bristling with sharp points, to defend them from 
being ridden down by the enemy's cavalry. At length, 
however, Henry gave orders to commence the attack, 
and the archers advanced, leaving their stakes behind 
them fixed in the ground. The French cavalry on either 
side endeavoured to close them in, but were soon obliged 
to retire before the thick showers of arrows poured in upon 
them, which destroyed four-fifths of their numbers. Their 
horses then became unmanageable, being plagued with a 
multitude of wounds, and the whole army was thrown 
into confusion. Never was a more brilhant victory won 
against more overwhelming odds. 

10. One sad piece of cruelty alone tarnished the glory 
of that day's action, but it seems to have been dictated 
by fear as a means of self-preservation. After the enemy 
had been completely routed in front and a multitude of 
prisoners taken, the King, hearing that some detachments 



1415. The War with France, 99 

had got round to his rear and were endeavouring to 
plunder his baggage, gave orders to the whole army to 
put their prisoners to death. The order was executed in 
the most relentless fashion. One or two distinguished 
prisoners afterwards were taken from under heaps of 
slain, among whom were the Dukes of Orleans and 
Bourbon. Altogether, the slaughter of the French was 
enormous. There is a general agreement that it was 
upwards of 10,000 men, and among them were the flower 
of the French nobility. That of the English was dispro- 
portionately small. Their own writers reckon it not more 
than 100 altogether, some absurdly stating it as low as 
twenty or thirty, while the French authorities estimate it 
variously from 30010 1,600. Henry called his victory the 
battle of Agincourt from the name of a neighbouring 
castle. The army proceeded in excellent order to Calais, 
where they were triumphantly received, and after resting 
there a while recrossed to England. The news of such a 
splendid victory caused them to be welcomed with an 
enthusiasm that knew no bounds. At Dover the people 
rushed into the sea to meet the conquerors, and carried 
the King in their arms in triumph from his vessel to the 
shore. From thence to London his progress was like one 
continued triumphal procession, and the capital itself 
received him with every demonstration of joy. 

III. The Emperor Sigismimd — Heiiry invades France a 
seco7id ti7ne — The Fotcl Raid — ExectUion of Oldcastle, 

I. In the following spring Henry was honoured with 
a visit from Sigismund, King, of the Romans ^ ^^ g 
and Emperor elect. His great object was to Visit of the 
heal the divisions in Christendom, and he had sigSmSnd 
already presided at one session of the Coun- to England, 
cil of Constance which had been convoked by him for 



100 Hen7y V, 



CH. V. 



the purpose of terminating the schism in the papacy. At 
that session two of the rival popes, John XXIII. and 
Gregory XI I., were persuaded to resign, and he had 
afterwards obtained from the third, Benedict XI 1 1., an 
engagement to acknowledge the authority of the council. 
Before leaving Constance, too, he had, though most un- 
willingly, yielding to the solicitations of the divines, con- 
sented to the execution of John Huss, the Bohemian 
heretic, to whom he had given a safe-conduct. Extin- 
guishing heresy was supposed to be a great means of pro- 
moting harmony among Christians, and he was taught 
by his spiritual instructors that he had no right to keep 
faith with the Church's enemies. But now he was on 
a mission to prevent war and bloodshed between two 
nations ; for he wished to be the negotiator of peace 
between France and England, and Charles VI., whom 
he had visited on his way, had desired him to use his 
best efforts towards that end. 

2. If, however, he was at any time sincere in this in- 
tention, he very soon became convinced that a firm peace 
He becomes t)etween the two countries was hopeless, and, 
an ally of as his Stay in England was protracted he 
^""^^^ ceased to be a mediator and became more 

and more a partizan of Henry. Just before his arrival 
the Earl of Dorset, whom Henry had left as governor of 
Harfleur, overran the adjacent country up to the gates of 
Rouen. The Count of Armagnac, Constable of France, 
retaliated by laying siege to Harfleur by land and sea, 
and succeeded in reducing it to great extremities for want 
of victuals. Henry proposed to go thither with a fleet 
for its relief, but was dissuaded by the Emperor from 
hazarding his person in the enterprise, and gave the com- 
mand of the squadron to his brother the Duke of Bedford, 
who soon took or sunk several of the enemy's vessels and 
compelled him to raise the siege. The Emperor highly 



i4i6. The Emperor Sigismttnd, lOi 

applauded the Duke of Bedford^s gallantry, and be- 
coming every day more cordial to Henry, at length 
entered into an offensive and defensive league with him 
against France. On the conclusion of his visit Henry 
accompanied him over to Calais. 

3. To Calais John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, 
then came to pay a visit to the King and Emperor. 
From his past conduct it was naturally sus- th D k 
pected that he was once more seeking to of Bur- 
make an alliance with his country's enemies. ^^" ^* 
So deeply, indeed, was he distrusted by the Court of 
France, that his assistance had not been asked to repel 
the English invasion, and he was accordingly not present 
at the battle of Agincourt, though two of his brothers 
died upon the field. He professed great anxiety to 
avenge their deaths, and, as if to do his country service, 
advanced towards Paris with a large body of followers. 
But the city of Paris remembered the rule of the Cabo- 
chians and kept him at a distance. Of course, when 
after this he went to Calais and conferred with the King 
of England, the worst possible inferences were drawn as 
to his intention. It appears, however, that he did not 
actually ally himself with Henry against France, but only 
concluded a truce with him for the counties of Flanders 
and Artois. He was more concerned to form an alliance 
within the kingdom against the Armagnacs, and for 
this purpose, after leaving Henry, he had conferences at 
Valenciennes with John, the second son of the French 
king, who had recently become dauphin by the death of 
his brother, Louis Duke of Guienne. The two princes 
made a firm alliance together, and the duke promised to 
aid the dauphin in defending the kingdom against the 
English. But before many months were over the new 
A.D. 1417. dauphin followed his brother to the grave. 
April 4. Charles, the third brother, who became dau- 



I02 Henry V, 



CH. V. 



phin in his place, was a boy of fourteen, completely under 
the control of the Count of Armagnac, who was now all- 
powerful. Suspicions were expressed that both his 
brothers had met with foul play in order that he might 
be heir-apparent. The last dauphin, indeed, had in all 
probability been poisoned. The Count of Armagnac ruled 
Paris with great despotism and cruelty by means of an 
army of Gascons ; and the citizens at length began to 
form conspiracies in favour of the Duke of Burgundy. 
Queen Isabel herself relented towards her old enemy ; 
but Armagnac sent her away to Tours and shut her up in 
prison. The Queen, however, declared herself Regent, 
protested against the assumption of authority by Armag- 
nac, and ordered that the taxes he imposed should not be 
levied. The Duke of Burgundy made war in her behalf, 
released her from captivity and brought her back to 
Paris. Her son, the dauphin, whom she hated as an 
enemy, was obliged to leave the capital ; and, as he also 
claimed to be regent, and disputed the authority of Bur- 
gundy and his own mother, the war was renewed in the 
provinces with as much violence as ever. 

4. A kingdom in such a condition as this could not 
but be an easy prey to an invader. Henry crossed the 
^^^ sea once more and landed again in Normandy, 

invades at Toucqucs, near the mouth of the Seine, but 

again*^^ on the opposite side to Harfleur. The Count 

Aug. I. of Armagnac had withdrawn most of the garri- 

sons and placed them about Paris to act against the Duke 
of Burgundy, so that town after town submitted to the 
English with little or no resistance. And as Henry 
established good government wherever he advanced, 
enforcing respect for women and for property, the 
country was beyond all question benefited by the inva- 
sion. In the course of a few months the English were 
masters of the greater part of Normandy. 



141 7- Hairy s Second Invasion of France. 103 

5. Meanwhile the Scots, following their usual policy, 
took advantage of the King's absence in France to at- 
tempt an inroad into the northern counties. 'The Foul 
The Duke of Albany, governor of Scotland, Raid.' 
accompanied by the Earl Douglas — that same Douglas 
who had fought against Henry IV. at Homildon and 
Shrewsbury, and lost an eye in the former battle — laid 
siege to Roxburgh castle. The expedition — unless it w^as 
intended by Albany simply to irritate the English and 
confirm them in their determination to keep King James 
a prisoner — appears to have been singularly ill-planned. 
Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, who had gone on a pilgrimage 
to Bridlington, no sooner heard the news than he hurried 
to the Borders, collecting men upon his way, and joined 
with the northern barons to resist the invaders. Another 
army hastened northwards under John Duke of Bedford, 
the King's brother, who had been left as guardian of the 
kingdom in Henry's absence. But the Scots, finding 
that England was in a much better state to resist them 
than they had anticipated, abandoned the siege of Rox- 
burgh, and shamefully returned home. The expedition 
reflected so little honour upon the country that it was 
called by the Scots themselves ^ the Foul Raid/ and by 
that name is known in history. It was severely punished 
by the Warden of the Marches, who, during the next 
two years laid waste the whole of the eastern borders 
of Scotland, reducing Hawick, Selkirk, Jedburgh, and 
Dunbar to ashes. 

6. By some it was insinuated that Sir John Oldcastle 
had been privy to this invasion. It was said that an 
emissary of the Scots had conferred with Oldcastle at 
Pomfret, and that Oldcastle had offered him a large sum 
of money if he would get his countrymen to bring the 
supposed King Richard with him into England. Such 
reports, of course, are evidence of nothing but the strong 



104 Henry V. 



CH. V. 



feeling of aversion with which the Lollards were re- 
garded ; but as such they are significant. Oldcastle had 
Oidcastle now lain concealed from the King's officers for 
hendedand ^^^'^ vears and a half; but about this time 
executed. he narrowlv escaped being apprehended at 
St. Alban's, after which he was actually captured on 
the lands of Lord Powis in Wales. He was at once 
brought up to London, and, as Parliament was then in 
session, he was put on trial before his peers. The old 
indictment was brought up against him, and he was con- 
demned to death. The sentence was executed upon him 
in the same barbarous manner in which it had already 
been executed on some of his followers. He was taken 
to St. Giles's Fields where the rising had occurred in his 
favour nearly three years before ; and there he was hung 
from a gallows by a great iron chain, and a fire being 
kindled beneath him he was burned to death. 



IV. Siege and Capture of Rouen — Mtirder of the Dtike 
of Burgundy — Treaty of Troves. 

I. The progress of the English arms in France did 

not, for a long time, induce the rival factions in that 

countrv to suspend the civil war among them- 

A.D. 141S. ' ^ ^ 

selves. But at length some feeble efforts were 
made towards a reconciliation. The Council of Con- 
stance having healed the divisions in the Church by the 
election of Martin V. as pope in place of the three rival 
popes deposed, the new pontiff despatched two cardinals 
to France to aid in this important object. By their 
mediation a treaty was concluded between the 
Queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the dau- 
phin ; but it Avas no sooner published than the Count 
of Armagnac and his partisans made a vehement protest 



1418. Siege and Capture of Rouen, 105 

against it and accused of treason all who had promoted 
it. On this Paris rose in anger, took part with r^^^ p^^j 
the Burgundians, fell upon all the leading Ar- sians revolt 

, . . , , J against the 

magnacs, put them m prison and destroyed Armagnacs, 
their houses. The dauphin was only saved ^^^^ ^o. 
by one of Armagnac's principal adherents, Tannegui du 
Chatel, who carried him to the Bastille. The Bastille, 
however, was a few days after stormed by the 
populace, and Du Chatel was forced to with- 
draw with his charge to Melun. The Armagnac party, 
except those in prison, were entirely driven out of Paris. 
But even this did not satisfy the rage of the multitude. 
Riots continued from day to day, and a report being 
spread that the King was willing to ransom the captives, 
the people broke open the prisons and mas- 
sacred every one of the prisoners. The Count 
of Armagnac, his chancellor, and several bishops and 
officers of state were the principal victims ; but no one, 
man or woman, was spared. State prisoners, criminals, 
and debtors, even women great with child, perished in 
this indiscriminate slaughter. 

2. Almost the whole of Normandy was by this time 
in possession of the English ; but Rouen, the capital of 
the duchy, still held out. It was a large city, siege of 
strongly fortified, but Henry closed it in on Ro^en. 
every side until it was reduced to capitulate by hunger. 
At the beginning of the siege the authorities took mea- 
sures to expel the destitute class of the inhabitants, and 
several thousands of poor people were thus thrown into 
the hands of the besiegers, who endeavoured to drive 
them back into the town. But the gates being absolutely 
shut against them, they remained between the walls and 
the trenches, pitifully crying for help and perishing for 
want of food and shelter, until, on Christmas Day, 
when the siege had continued nearly five months, Henry 



io6 Henry V, 



CH. V. 



ordered food to be distributed to them ^ in the honour of 
Christ's Nativity/ Those within the town^ meanwhile, 
were reduced to no less extremities. Enormous prices 
were given for bread, and even for the bodies of dogs, 
cats, and rats. The garrison at length were induced 
to offer terms, but Henry for some time insisted on 
their surrendering at discretion. Hearing, however, 
that a desperate project was entertained of undermining 
the wall and suddenly rushing out upon the besiegers, he 
consented to grant them conditions, and the city capi- 
A.D. 1419. tulated on January 19. The few places that 
Jan. 19. remained unconquered in Normandy then 

opened their gates to Henry ; others in Maine and the 
Isle of France did the same, and the English troops 
entered Picardy on a further career of conquest. 

3. Both the rival factions were now seriously anxious 
to stop the progress of the English, either by coming at 
once to terms with Henry, or by uniting together against 
him ; and each in turn first tried the former course. The 
dauphin offered to treat with the King of England ; 
but as Henry demanded the whole of those large posses- 
sions in the north and south of France which had been 
secured to Edward HI. by the treaty of Bretigni, he felt 
that it was impossible to prolong the negotiation. The 
Duke of Burgundy then arranged a personal interview at 
Meulan between Henry on the one side and himself and 
the French queen on behalf of Charles, at which terms of 
peace were to be adjusted. The Queen brought with her 
the Princess Catherine her daughter, whose hand Henry 
himself had formerly demanded as one of the conditions 
on which he would have consented to forbear from in- 
vading France. It was now hoped that if he would take 
her in marriage he would moderate his other demands. 
But Henry, for his part, was altogether unyielding. He 
insisted on the terms of the treaty of Bretigni, and on 



I4I9- Siege and Capture of Roiten, 107 

keeping his own conquests besides, with Anjou, Maine, 
Touraine, and the sovereignty over Brittany. 

A., Demands so exorbitant the Duke of Burgundy did 
not dare to accept, and as a last resource, he and the 
dauphin agreed to be reconciled and to unite in the 
defence of their country against the enemy. They held 
a personal interview, embraced each other, 
and signed a treaty, by w^hich they promised 
each to love the other as a brother, and to offer a joint re- 
sistance to the invaders. A further meeting was arranged 
to take place about seven weeks later to complete matters 
and to consider their future policy. France was delighted 
at the prospect of internal harmony and the hope of de- 
liverance from her enemies. But at the second interview 
an event occurred which marred all her prospects once 
more. The meeting had been appointed to take place at 
Montereau, where the river Yonne falls into the Seine. 
The duke, remembering doubtless, how^ he himself had 
perfidiously murdered the Duke of Orleans, allowed the 
day originally appointed to pass by, and came to the 
place at last after considerable misgivings, w^hich appear 
to have been overcome by the exhortations of treacherous 
friends. When he arrived he found a place railed in 
with barriers for the meeting. He nevertheless ad- 
vanced, accompanied by ten attendants, and being 
told that the dauphin waited for him, he came within the 
barriers, which w^ere immediately closed behind him. 
The dauphin was accompanied by one or tw^o gentlemen, 
among whom was his devoted servant, Tannegui du 
Chatel, who had saved him from the Parisian massacre. 
This Tannegui had been formerly a servant of Louis 
Duke of Orleans, whose murder he had been 

^ _ 1 1 . . Murder of 

eagerly seekmg an opportunity to revenge ; the Duke of 
and as the Duke of Burgundy knelt before ^^^s^^^y- 
the dauphin, he struck him a violent blow on the 



io8 Henry V. 



CH. V. 



head with a battle-axe. The attack was immediately 
followed up by two or three others, who, before the duke 
was able to draw his sword, had closed in around him 
and despatched him with a multitude of wounds. 

5. The effect of this crime was what might have been 
anticipated. Nothing could have been more favourable 
to the aggressive designs of Henry, or more ruinous to 
the party of the dauphin, with whose complicity it had 
been too evidently committed. Philip, the son and heir 
of the murdered Duke of Burgundy, at once sought means 
to revenge his father's death. The people of Paris be- 
came more than ever enraged against the Armagnacs, 
and entered into negotiations w^ith the King of England. 
The new Duke Philip and Queen Isabel dfd the sarne, 
the latter being no less eager than the former for the 
punishment of her own son. Within less than three 
months they made up their minds to waive every scruple 
as to the acceptance of Henry's most exorbitant demands. 
He was to have the Princess Catherine in marriage, and, 
the dauphin being disinherited, to succeed to the crown 
of France on her father's death. He was also to be 
regent during King Charles's life ; and all who held 
honours or offices of any kind in France were at once to 
swear allegiance to him as their future sovereign. Henry, 
for his part, was to use his utmost power to reduce to 

obedience those towns and places within the realm which 

adhered to the dauphin or the Armagnacs. 

6. A treaty on this basis was at length concluded at 

Troyes in Champagne on May 21, 1420, and on Trinity 
Sunday, June 2, Henry was married to the 

May 21. * Princess Catherine. Shortly afterwards, the 

Jf Tr7yes treaty was formally registered by the states of 

Henry's the realm at Paris, when the dauphin was 

condemned and attainted as guilty of the 

murder of the Duke of Burgundy and declared in- 



1420. Mtcrder of the Dttke of Burgundy. 1 09 

capable of succeeding to the crown. But the state of 
affairs left Henry no time for honeymoon festivities. On 
the Tuesday after his wedding he again put himself at 
the head of his army, and marched with Philip of Bur- 
gundy to lay siege to Sens, which in a few days capitu- 
lated. Montereau and Melun were next besieged in suc- 
cession, and each, after some resistance, was compelled 
to surrender. The latter siege lasted nearly four months, 
and during its continuance Henry fought a single combat 
with the governor in the mines, each combatant having 
his vizor down and being unknown to the other. The 
governor's name was Barbason, and he was one of those 
accused of complicity in the murder of the Duke of 
Orleans ; but-in consequence of this incident, Henry 
saved him from the capital punishment which he would 
otherwise have incurred on his capture. 

V. Henrys Third Inv anon of France — His Death. 

1. Towards the end of the year Henry entered Paris 
in triumph with the French king and the Duke of Bur- 
gundy. He there kept Christmas, and shortly afterwards 
removed with his Queen into Normandy on 

his return into England. He held a parha- ' " " ^^^^' 
ment at Rouen to confirm his authority in the duchy, 
after which he passed through Picardy and Calais, and 
crossing the sea came by Dover and Canterbury to 
London. By his own subjects, and especially in the 
capital, he and his bride were received with profuse 
demonstrations of joy. The Queen was crowned 
at Westminster with great magnificence, and crotned!^'' 
afterwards Henry went a progress with her ^^^- '^^' 
through the country, making pilgrimages to several of the 
more famous shrines in England. 

2. But while he was thus employed^ a great calamity 



1 10 Henry V. 



CH. V. 



befell the English power in France, which, when' the news 
arrived in England, made it apparent that the King's 
presence was again much needed across the Channel. 
His brother, the Duke of Clarence, whom he had left as 
_ , ^ his lieutenant, was defeated and slain at 

Battle of ^ , . . . . - ^ , 

Beauge, Beauge m Anjcru by an army of French and 

March 22. Scots, a number of English noblemen being 
also slain or taken prisoners. This was the first impor- 
tant advantage the dauphin had gained, and the credit of 
the victory was mainly due to his Scotch allies. For the 
Duke of Albany, who was Regent of Scotland, though it 
is commonly supposed that he was unwilling to give 
needless offence to England lest Henry should terminate 
his power by setting the Scotch king at liberty, had been 
compelled by the general sympathy of the Scots with 
France to send a force under his son the Earl of Buchan 
to serve against the English. The service which they 
did in that battle was so great that the Earl of Buchan 
was created by the dauphin Constable of France. 

3. Again Henry crossed the sea with a new army, 
having borrowed large sums for the expenses of the ex- 
Henry's pedition. Before he left England he made a 
vasion'^of private treaty with his prisoner King James 
France. of Scotland, promising to let him return to 
his country after the campaign in France on certain 
specified conditions, among which it was agreed that 
he should take the command of a body of troops in aid 
of the Enghsh. James had accompanied him in his last 
campaign, and Henry had endeavoured to make use of 
his authority to forbid the Scots in France from taking 
part in the war, but they had refused to acknowledge 
themselves bound to a king who was a captive. By this 
agreement, however, Henry obtained real assistance and 
co-operation from his prisoner, whom he employed, in 
concert with the Duke of Gloucester, in the siege of 



I42I. Henrys Third Invasion of France. in 

Dreux, which ver}' soon surrendered. He himself mean- 
while marched towards the Loire to meet the dau- 
phin, and took Beaugency ; then returning northwards, 
first reduced Villeneuve on the Yonne, and afterwards 
laid siege to ^leaux on the r^Iarne. The latter place 
held out for seven months, and while Henrv ^. , ^ 

1 1 r • 1 • -, . -.1- 1 1 •' Birth of 

lay before it, he received intelligence that his Henry vi., 
queen had borne him a son at Windsor, who ^^^' ^' 
was christened Henry. 

4. The city of ^leaux surrendered on ^lay 10, 1422. 
The governor, a man who had been guilty of great 
cruelties, was beheaded, and his head and a.d. 1422. 
body were suspended from a tree, on which -^^^^ ^°* 
he himself had caused a number of people to be hanged 
as adherents of the Duke of Burgundy. Henry was now 
master of the greater part of the north of France, and his 
queen came over from England to join him, with reinforce- 
ments under his brother the Duke of Bedford. But he was 
not permitted to rest ; for the dauphin, having taken from 
his ally the Duke of Burgundy the town of La Charite on 
the Loire, proceeded to lay siege to Cosne, and Philip, 
having applied to Henry for assistance, he sent forward 
the Duke of Bedford with his army, intending shortly to 
follow himself. This demonstration v/as sufficient. The 
dauphin felt that he was too weak to contend with the 
united English and Burgundian forces, and he withdrew^ 
from the siege. 

5. Henr\', however, was disabled from joining the 
army by a severe attack of dysentery ; and 
though he had at first hoped that he might be death of 
carried in a litter to head-quarters, he soon ^^^^ ^• 
found that the illness was far too serious to permit him to 
carry out his intention. He was accordingly conveyed 
back to Vincennes near Paris, where he grew so rapidly 
worse that it was evident his end was near. In a few 



112 Henry V. 



CH. V. 



brief words to those about him he declared his will touch- 
ing the government of England and France after his 
death until his infant son should be of age. The regency 
of France he committed to the Duke of Bedford, in case 
it should be declined by the Duke of Burgundy. That 
of England he gave to his other brother, Humphrey Duke 
of Gloucester. To his two uncles, Henry Beaufort, 
Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of 
Exeter, he entrusted the guardianship of his child. He 
besought all parties to maintain the alliance with Bur- 
gundy, and never to release the Duke of Orleans and the 
other prisoners of Agincourt during his son's minority. 
• ^ ^ Having given these instructions he expired, 

on the last day of August, 1422. 
6. His death was bewailed both in England and 
France with no ordinary regret. The great achieve- 
ments of his reign made him naturally a popular hero ; 
nor was the regard felt for his memory diminished when 
under the feeble reign of his son all that he had gained 
was irrecoverably lost again, so that nothing remained of 
all his conquests except the story of how they had been 
won. Those past glories, indeed, must have seemed all 
the brighter when contrasted with a present which knew but 
disaster abroad and civil dissension at home. The early 
death of Henry also contributed to the popular estimate 
of his greatness. It was seen that in a very few years he 
had subdued a large part of the territory of France. It 
was not seen that in the nature of things this advantage 
could not be maintained, and that even the greatest 
military talents would not have succeeded in preserving 
the English conquests. 

7. Nor can it be said that Henry's success, extraordi- 
nary as it was, was altogether owing to his own abilities. 
That he exhibited great qualities as a general cannot be 
denied ; but these would have availed him little if the 



1422. Death of Henry, 1 1 3 

rival factions in France had not been far more bitterly 
opposed to each other than to him. Indeed, it is diffi- 
cult after all to justify, even as a matter of policy, his 
interference in French affairs except as a means of di- 
verting public attention from the fact that he inherited 
from his father but an indifferent title even to the throne 
of England. And though success attended his efforts 
beyond all expectation, he most wilfully endangered the 
safety, not only of himself, but of his gallant army, when 
he determined to march with reduced forces through the 
enemy's country from Harfleur to Calais. It was a rash- 
ness nothing less than culpable, but that in his own 
interest rashness was good policy. Unless he could suc- 
ceed in desperate enterprises against tremendous odds 
and so make himself a military hero and a favourite of 
the multitude, his throne was insecure. He succeeded ; 
but it was only by staking ever^'thing upon the venture — 
his own safety and that of his whole army, which if the 
French had exercised but a little more discretion, would 
inevitably have been cut to pieces or made prisoners to 
a man. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE COUNCIL OF COXSTANXE AND THE WAR IN 
BOHEMIA. 

I. In speaking of the visit of the Emperor Sigismund to 
England, we have already made allusion to the famous 
Council of Constance, which commenced its sittings in 
the year 141 5. But it is right that we should here give 
some account of what led to the meeting of that council, 
and also of what it did, and of the events to which its 
proceedings gave rise. 

2. It has been obsen'ed in a former chapter that on 
I 



114 Henry V, ch. vi 

the election of Urban VI. at Rome in 1378, a portion of 
the cardinals set up a rival pope named Cle- 

The schism ^^^^ , , , -, 11 * . 

in the ment VII. who brought back the see to Avig- 

papacy. ^^^ ^^^ ^^.^^ recognised by France and some 

other countries. This Antipope Clement died in 1394; 
but the party which had adhered to him elected as his 
successor a native of Arragon, who assumed the name 
of Benedict XIII. Ivlean while the other party, which 
had adhered to Urban, elected a new pope on his death, 
and afterwards two more in succession, the last of whom 
was named Gregory XII. But efforts were now made 
on both sides to terminate the evils of this long con- 
tinued schism. Benedict XI I L at Avignon and Gregory 
XII. at Rome, were each elected under a promise to 
resign if his rival would do the same, in order that a 
new pope might be chosen who should be acknowledged 
by both parties. But neither Gregory nor Benedict 
showed any willingness to give up his title for the good 
Council of of Christendom, and, a council being held 
Pisa. ^^ p-gg^ -j^ 1409, they were both deposed, and 

a new pope, Alexander V., elected in their place. The 
decision of the council, however, did not very much mend 
matters, for neither of the deposed popes would acknow- 
ledge its authority, and the result was to make three 
rival pontiffs instead of two. The validity of the act of 
deposition, however, was generally acknowledged, and 
when Alexander V. died the year after his 
election, he was succeeded by Cardinal Cossa, 
who called himself John XXIII. 

3. Now it must be mentioned that this schism in the 
papacy was also the cause of a succession of rival claim- 
Rival kings ants to the throne of Naples ; for the kings of 
of Naples. Naples held their kingdom of the Pope as 
their superior lord, and when Queen Joanna, who then 
ruled, adhered to the Avignon pope, Clement VII., she 



I4I0. TJie Council of Constance, 1 1 5 

was deposed by a bull of the Roman pope, Urban VI. 
who called in Charles of Durazzo to give effect to his 
sentence. This Charles soon took possession 
of the kingdom and put Joanna to death ; but 
Louis Duke of Anjou, whom she had named as her suc- 
cessor, was crowned at Avignon by Clement VII. and 
went to Italy to dispute his title. Within a very few 
years both the rivals died, leaving their pretensions to 
their sons, who with very var}'ing fortune, each at times 
gaining great successes against the other, kept up the 
struggle for nearly thirty years. In 1399, the year when 
Henry IV. obtained the throne of England, Ladislaus, 
the king who adhered to the Roman pope, made himself 
for the time com.pletely master of the kingdom, of which 
he kept undisturbed possession for ten years. During 
this interval he was also invited to become King of Hun- 
gary, and crowned in opposition to King Sigismund, who 
was afterwards emperor. But in 1409 his rival, Louis 
of Anjou, having been recalled by the Neapolitans, ob- 
tained a recognition of his title from the Council of 
Pisa and the new pope Alexander V. Two years later a 
battle took place between the two rivals, in which Ladis- 
laus was utterly defeated, to the great delight of John 
XXI I L, Alexander's successor, who denounced him as a 
heretic and published a crusade against him. Ladislaus 
was shortly afterwards driven to make his peace with Pope 
John ; but in 141 3 he suddenly gained possession of 
Rome, and was meditating an attack on Bologna, whither 
John had retired, when he was arrested by mortal ill- 
ness. 

4. It was no great wonder that Ladislaus showed very 
little respect for the authority of Pope John. That pon- 
tiff had been elected at Bologna, where his Pope John 
predecessor died, by the influence of Louis of ^^^i^- 
Anjou, the French king of Naples, who had at the time 



Ii6 Henry V. 



CH. VI. 



a fleet off Genoa intended to act against Ladislaus. 
Pope John was a Neapolitan by birth, and in his youth, 
though he had akeady entered the Church, he had served 
at sea in the war between Louis and Ladislaus. After- 
wards he had gone to Rome, where being made chamber- 
lain to Pope Boniface IX., he had driven a trade in 
simony and the sale of indulgences. His morals were a 
matter of public scandal, and his election was a shock to 
all good men. But he was a man of great ability and a 
consummate politician. Of course when he was made 
pope he took the part of Louis against Ladislaus ; but 
when Ladislaus took possession of Rome and drove him 
to Bologna, he suggested to Sigismund, who was now 
become emperor, the convocation of a general council to 
promote the peace of Europe by restoring unity to the 
Church. Sigismund acquiesced in the proposal and ap- 
pointed that the council should meet at Constance. By 
this time Pope John repented of the advice that he had 
given, as the death of Ladislaus left him free to go back 
to Rome ; but the matter was now settled. 

5. Besides the rival claims of three different popes, the 
council had to take into consideration the subject of 
heresy ; for the doctrines of Wycliffe had spread beyond 

England and were very popular in Bohemia. 

John Huss, the'' confessor of Sophia, Queen of 
Bohemia, was deeply imbued with them, and had trans- 
lated several of Wycliffe's works into the Bohemian 
language. So great was the influence he had obtained that 
he was made rector of the university of Prague, and 
though excommunicated by the Archbishop of Prague, 
he gathered by his preaching a considerable party, till 
disturbances took place in public between his followers 
arfd the supporters of papal authority. These evils were 
aggravated by the publication of a bull of Pope John for 
a crusade against King Ladislaus — a project which Huss 



I4I4- ^^^^ Coitncil of Constance, i \y 

strongly denounced both by word and writing. People 
in the streets of Prague cried out that Pope John was 
Antichrist. Some of the ringleaders were captured by 
the authorities and put to death in prison. But their 
partisans obtained possession of their bodies and carried 
them to the different churches wrapped in cloth of gold, 
where the priests exhibited them to the assembled w^or- 
shippers as saints and martyrs for the truth. 

6. The Council at Constance was opened on Friday, 
November i6, 1414, Pope John himself presiding. The 
Emperor Sigismund arrived at Christmas. ^, ^ 

K \ r • J 1 T. The Council 

At the first session some one accused the Pope of Con- 
of a long catalogue of crimes, some of which s'^"^^- 
were regarded as too scandalous to be divulged. He was 
struck with consternation at the indictment, and took 
counsel with a few confidential friends what to do. He 
confessed to them that some of the charges were true, 
but was disposed to take comfort in the thought that a 
pope could not be deposed except for heresy. He was, 
however, advised by his friends to resign, and ^^d. 1415. 
this he promised to do on March 2, at the ^^^^ch 2. 
second session of the council. Shortly afterwards he 
escaped from the city in disguise, and resuming his 
authority, ordered the council to dissolve. But the 
council came to a determination that their authority as a 
general council was superior to that of the Pope himself, 
and that instead of their obeying the Pope, he was bound 
to obey them. Pope John was accordingly sent for and 
brought back to Constance ; the charges against him 
were examined, and on May 29 he was deposed and 
thrown into prison. 

7. After this Gregory XII. submitted to the authority 
of the council, and his resignation of the papacy was 
received on July 4. Benedict XI II., the one remaining 
claimant of pontifical honours, was in Spain, and some 



ii8 Heniy V. 



CH. VI. 



negotiation was required to induce him to resign as well. 
But the Emperor left the Council and went to Narbonne, 
where he had a meeting with the King of Arragon, who 
with the Kings of Castile, Navarre, and other countries 
which had hitherto supported Benedict, engaged by their 
ambassadors to withdraw their obedience from him ; after 
which he was deposed by the council on March 30, 14 17. 
Thus, a way being opened for the election of a new pope 
A.D. 1417. with a valid title, a conclave v/as held at Con- 
Nov. II. stance, in which Martin V. was chosen as 
head of the Church. 

8. John Huss had received a summons to appear 
before the council. He obtained a safe-conduct from 
the Emperor Sigismund, and arrived at Constance with 
a large suite of followers on November 3, 141 4. On his 
way thither he had posted up placards in the different 
towns, offering to dispute with any anyone on matters of 
theology. He had challenged the Archbishop of Prague 
in this manner to a disputation before he left Bohemia. 
But he found Constance a very different place from his 
own city, and soon had cause to doubt about the treat- 
ment he should receive there notwithstanding his safe- 
conduct. He attempted to escape, but was brought back 
and committed to prison. Efforts were made to get him 
to retract his heresies, but in vain. The Council passed 
sentence upon him, ordered his books to be burned, and 
himself to be degraded from the priesthood. Being then 
Martyrdom as a layman delivered over to the secular arm, 
of Huss Yie was, by the authorities of Constance, con- 

A.D. 1415- 

July 6. demned to be burned at the stake, — a fate 

which he endured with great firmness and heroism. His 
ashes were then thrown into the Rhine, from a fear lest 
his disciples should preserve them as relics. 

9. The infliction of capital punishment, after he had 
received the Emperor's safe-conduct, was a thing which. 



I4I4- ^'^^^ CoiLHcil of Constance. 1 19 

apart from the cruelty of the sentence, seemed inconsistent 
with good faith and honour. But in the eyes of the 
council heresy was a noxious disease which must be 
suppressed at any cost for the good of the whole Christian 
world ; and the Emperors safe-conduct, it was considered, 
was only intended to assure his safety in coming up 
to Constance and pleading his own cause before the 
council. It gave him an opportunity of vindicating his 
doctrine by argument, if it could be vindicated to the 
council's satisfaction ; but it was no more intended to 
protect an obstinate heretic than if he had been a mur- 
derer. As John Huss had failed to justify his doctrines to 
the satisfaction of the council, and refused to abandon them 
at their bidding, his safe-conduct availed him no further. 

10. The attention of the council was at the same time 
called to the doctrines of his master, Wycliffe, which were 
hkewise condemned as heretical; and so anxious were 
the assembled fathers to give effect to their censure that 
they ordered Wycliffe's bones to be dug up and burned. 
This sentence was put in execution in England shortly 
afterwards, and the Reformer's ashes were thrown into 
a rivulet which flows by the town of Lutterworth. 

11. Before the condemnation of Huss. his friend and 
most devoted follower, Jerome of Prague, was also cited 
before the council. He had already come to jerome of 
Constance, but finding that Huss had been Pr^o^ue. 
thrown into prison he withdrew, and wrote to the Emperor 
from Uberlingen, desiring a safe-conduct to return. He 
also caused placards to be set upon the church doors at 
Constance, offering to come and clear himself from the 
imputation of heresy if no violence were offered him. It 
was in answer to this that the summons was sent out 
against him. Jerome, meanwhile, receiving no satisfactory 
assurances of safety, was making his way back to Bohe- 
mia, but he was arrested on the road and brought back to 



120 Henry V, 



CH. VI. 



Constance. After the sentence executed upon Huss he 
made a retractation, but, doubts being entertained as to 
the sincerity of his conversion, he was subjected to further 
examination, and confessed that he had only been driven 
to recant by fear. He denounced his own cowardice, 
recalled what he had said, and expressed his full adhesion 
to the doctrines of Wycliffe and Huss. Sentence of con- 
demnation was accordingly passed against him as a 
relapsed heretic, and on May 30, 141 6, he suffered the 
same fate that Huss had suffered nine months before. 
His fortitude at the last, like that of Huss, struck be- 
holders with admiration. The learned Poggio Braccio- 
lini, who, by his examination of convent libraries, recovered 
a number of the writings of the ancient classic authors 
which had been lost to the world for centuries, was pre- 
sent at his trial and execution. The learning and 
eloquence of Jerome won his highest admiration, and his 
constancy at the stake he could not help comparing with 
that of Socrates when he drank the cup of hemlock. 

12. The executions of Huss and Jerome of Prague 
were intended to promote peace and religious union 
throughout Christendom. They brought anything but 
peace, however, to Bohemia, the country to which the 
two martyrs belonged. No sooner was the execution of 
Troubles in Huss knowH at Prague than a great sedition 
Bohemia. arosc. His followers attacked the palace of 
the archbishop and the houses of the orthodox clergy. 
The Bohemian nobles wrote an indignant letter to the 
council, whom they accused of putting to death as a heretic 
a man who had not been convicted of any error, and they 
declared their intention of appealing from the council to 
the future pope against his condemnation. But stronger 
measures were taken by John Ziska of Trocz- 
leaderofthe now, chamberlain of Wenceslaus, King of 
Bohemians. Bohemia, the deposed emperor. This Ziska 



14 1 6. The Council of Constance, 121 

was a man of considerable experience in war, who had 
lost an eye in battle. In 1 410 he had lent his services to 
Jagellon, King of Poland, and distinguished himself at 
the great battle of Tannenberg against the Teutonic 
knights. He was a personal friend of Huss, and re- 
sented his persecution besides as an affront to the people 
of Bohemia. The same feeling was largely shared by 
the peasantry, who assembled in great numbers to re- 
venge the martyr's death, and chose Ziska for their 
leader. 

13. The death of Jerome, added to that of Huss, in- 
creased their indignation. Great disturbances took place, 
which King Wenceslaus. who partly sympathised with 
the Hussites, was unable to appease. He conceded to 
them the use of a number of churches in which they 
might administer the sacrament to the people in both 
kinds ; but while the Cathohc party did all in their power 
to resist this innovation, the Hussites only increased their 
demands. Wenceslaus in vam endeavoured to temporise. 
The government of Prague was in the hands of the 
Cathohcs, but on July 30, 141 9, a collision took place 
between the two parties in the streets ; on which the 
Hussites, under Ziska, attacked the town hall, and having 
forced an entrance, threw the magistrates out of the 
windows. The mob below received them on the points 
of lances. 

14. King Wenceslaus was much agitated on receiving 
the news of this outrage, and died a few days after. His 
brother, the Emperor Sigismund, succeeded him as King 
of Bohemia. But the Hussites, remembering the perse- 
cution of their leader, refused to acknowledge his title, 
and Ziska overthrew his troops in numerous engagements, 
although the Pope, to assist the Emperor, proclaimed a 
crusade against the heretics. In the course of these 
wars Ziska lost his other eye ; but he still continued to 



122 Henry V. 



CH. VI. 



lead the insurgents with vigour, and soon succeeded in 
driving the Emperor out of Bohemia. 

15. Such was the state of matters in that kingdom at 
the time when Henry V. of England died. Sigismund had 
for the time lost possession of his kingdom, and armies 
were being raised by the German electors to assist him 
to recover it. But these armies, too, were defeated by 
the victorious Ziska, who maintained the cause of the 
Hussites successfully till his death in 1424; and even for 
several years after that they were victorious under other 
leaders. Divisions, however, sprang up among them- 
selves which were far more disastrous to their cause than 
all the armies sent against them. The first insurgents 
under Ziska encamped upon a hill, named by them Mount 
Tabor, about fifty miles south of Prague. This hill was 
all but completely surrounded by the river Luschnitz, a 
tributary of the Moldau, so that it could not be approached 
except upon one side without crossing the stream. Taking 
advantage of this position Ziska converted his camp into 
a fortified town, and his followers obtained the name of 
Taborites. Other sections of the party were called 
Horebites, Orphanites, and Calixtines. There was also 
a very repulsive set of fanatics called the Adamites, who 
went about naked after the manner of our first parents. 
This latter sect Ziska had made war upon, nor do they 
appear to have been at any time part of the Hussite 
party ; but their mere existence serves to mark how 
greatly the people of Bohemia were at this time influenced 
by religious ideas of the most extravagant description. 
So little had the council of Constance done to put an end 
to heresy ! 

16. The Council of Basle which met in 1431 adopted 
a different line of policy. As the burning of heretics. 
The Council instead of confuting their arguments, had not 
of Basle. restored peace to the Church, this council used 



1 43 1. The Wa7' in Bohemia. 123 

every means in its power to assure the Hussites that they 
might come and discuss their doctrines before them in 
perfect freedom and security. Won by this invitation, 
Procopius, surnamed the Shaven, general of the Taborites, 
came to Basle with a number of his followers. The 
matters in controversy between them and the Church 
were discussed at length ; and some concessions were 
made by the council, especially permitting the laity to 
partake of the communion in both kinds. On this a 
large number of the Hussites became reconciled to the 
Church. The remainder still held out ; but their strength 
was broken, and after some defeats they agreed to recog- 
nise Sigismund as their king, so that in the year 1436 he 
entered Prague triumphantly. Still disaffection was not 
at an end, and long after the death of Sigismund religious 
factions continued to agitate Bohemia. Even two centuries 
later the Bohemians rose in arms and commenced a long 
and bloody war to vindicate anew those principles for 
which the Hussites had contended. 



CHAPTER \TL 

HENRY VI. 



I. The Kz7ig's MhwTity and the French War. 

I. The death of Henry V. was an event which the 
English could not help feeling as a calamity of no ordi- 
nary kind. No other of their kings had ever been so 
lamented. In his brief reign of nine years and a half he 
had done more than Edward HI. and the Black Prince 
had succeeded in effecting. He had virtually added 
another kingdom to his inheritance — a kingdom larger, 
richer, and with a finer climate than his own. He had 
compelled the King of France to disinherit his own son 



124 Henry VL 



CH. VII. 



and to adopt him as his heir, with the concurrence of the 
estates of the realm. Vet he was called away before he 
could secure these advantages on a satisfactory basis, 
and he was obliged to leave to others the task of vindi- 
cating for his son against the dauphin the rights that had 
been conceded to him by the treaty of Troyes. 

2, It was a task that occupied the attention and fully 
engaged the energies of all England for a long time after. 
Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the next 
twenty years than the almost total absence of domestic 
England cvcnts of any interest. The whole mind of the 
wholly oc- nation was absorbed with the war in France, 

cupied with , , r t 

the French and even the arrangements tor the government 
^^^^^- at home were at first of subordinate impor- 

tance. The crown of England was no longer a question 
in dispute. Though the son of Henry was an infant of 
only nine months old, the . claiins of the Earl of March 
were not for a moment thought of. Every Englishman 
desired that infant peacefully to succeed his father. The 
title to the crown of France was the only thing in ques- 
tion, and to maintain that every nerve was strained : on 
France all eyes were riveted. 

3. One domestic question, however, had to be settled 
at the outset. According to the constitution of England 
all acts of government emanate from the king ; but when 
the king, either from being under age or from some 
other disqualification, is unable to act himself, his au- 
thority devolves upon the great council of the lords, who, 
if he were capable of acting, would be his natural ad- 
The council visers. This authority the lords on the present 
will not occasion were solicited to yield up to Hum- 
regency in phrey Duke of Gloucester, who claimed the 
England. regency under the will of the late King his 
brother. But the council withstood his claim, and when 
Parliament assembled the House of Lords determined 



1422. Tlie King's Minority. 125 

that the late King's will on this point was invalid, not 
being warranted by precedent or constitutional usage. 
The Duke of Gloucester was empowered to act, but only 
with the consent of the council, as the young King's 
representative in summoning and dissolving Parhament, 
He was admitted to be the King's chief councillor in the 
absence of his brother Bedford ; and an act was passed 
committing to him in Bedford's absence the care of 
defending the kingdom, with the title of Protector. But 
his functions in this respect were very limited, and the 
real work of government was entrusted to a committee of 
lords and com^moners. 

4. As for France, King Charles, according to Henry's 
dying request, first offered the regency to the Duke of 
Burgundy, and on his refusal gave it to Bed- The Duke 
ford. He was at first to govern in the name ^egenUn^ 
of Charles ; but within tw^o inonths after France, 
the death of Henr\-, the unhappy King of France 
also died. The infant who had already sue- 

ceeded to the throne of England by the name 
of Henry VI. was now, by the treaty of Troyes, King of 
France as well, and had in his imcle Bedford the ablest 
administrator that could have been found to advance his 
interests there. The dauphin, however, on his father's 
death, of course claimed to succeed him. The English 
laughed at his pretensions, and called him in mockery 
the King of Bourges ; but he was acknowledged south of 
the Loire to the borders of Guienne, and he had no lack 
of good soldiers, both of his own country and of the Scots^, 
to assist him in recovering his inheritance. 

5. In accordance with the ad\dce of Henry V. to 
preserve at all hazards the friendship of the Duke of 
Burgundy, Bedford began by marrying that duke's sister. 
He also promoted another marriage by which the duchy 
of Brittany was for a time won over to the league against 



126 Hemy VI. 



CH. vir. 



Charles VII., and nearly the whole sea coast of France 
was placed practically in the power of the English. These 
marriages took place amid the stir and bustle of Avar, and 
small time was wasted by the duke in wedding festivities. 
The enemy had surprised various places in Champagne 
and even in Normandy. But Bedford sent an army into 
Burgundy under the Earl of Salisbury, who after an 
obstinate battle raised the siege of Crevant on the Yonne. 
For some vears afterwards the war went on 

Progress of \ 

the English very favourably to England. The great victory 
arms. ^^ Vemcuil in 1424 opened to the English the 

way into the province of Maine, which they reduced with 
ease. The affairs of Charles were in a desperate con- 
dition, and would probably have been still more so but 
for dissensions which sprang up among the English at 
home between the Duke of Gloucester and Henry Beau- 
fort, Bishop of Winchester, the Lord Chancellor, of which 
we shall give an account hereafter. 

6. To put an end to the interference of Scotland in 
the war with France, the English council determined in 
Liberation ^4-3 ^^ fulfil the promise made by Henry V. 
of James I. to liberate King James and restore him to his 
country. Accordingly, after an unjust confinement of 
more than eighteen years, the ambitious Duke of Albany 
being now dead, James was set at liberty for a ransom of 
40,000 pounds, on swearing to a treaty by which the 
kings of England and Scotland were forbidden to assist 
each other's enemies. To engage James still further to 
the English interest he was given in marriage Lady Jane 
Beaufort, sister of the Duke of Somerset, a lady for whom 
he had conceived a great affection, and the sum of 10,000 
marks was deducted from his ransom for her dower. 



1429. 



Tlie French War. 127 



II. The Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc. 

1. By the ability and vigour of the Duke of Bedford^s 
administration the Enghsh not only succeeded in main- 
taining their conquests for several years, but even gained 
ground upon their enemies. For a time they made them- 
selves undisputed masters of nearly the whole territory 
north of the Loire; and in the summer of 1428 it was 
determined to make one great effort to drive the forces of 
Charles south of that river. Accordingly, reinforcements 
having arrived from England under the Earl of Salisbury, 
an advance was made upon Orleans. After taking several 
places round about, the Enghsh laid siege to giege of 
the city in October. The undertaking was a Orleans. 
great one. Salisbury caused sixty forts to be built about 
the city, to prevent succours being sent in ; and on six ot 
the largest he planted batteries which opened fire upon 
the walls. In course of time the English gained posses- 
sion of a tower which commanded the city. From a 
window in this tower Salisbury one day took a survey of 
the fortifications, when a shot from the besieged shattered 
the iron casement, so that the earl was mortally wounded 
by the fragments. His command was immediately taken 
by the Earl of Suffolk. 

2. The siege continued for several months, and in the 
spring of the following year gave rise to a remarkable 
action called the Battle of Herrings. At the 
beginning of Lent Sir John Fastolf, a brave Battle of' 
warrior who, having distinguished himself at ^^^""s^. 
Agincourt and elsewhere, had been entrusted with the 
government of Normandy, and afterwards with that of 
Anjou and Maine, was commissioned by the Regent to 
conduct a convoy of provisions, chiefly consisting of salt 
fish, to Orleans for the use of the besiegers. The French, 
having ascertained that such a convoy was to be sent, 



128 Hcmy VL 



CH. v]r. 



determined to intercept it upon the road. Fastolf had 
an escort of 1,700 men, but the enemy came upon him in 
superior numbers. He, however, entrenched 
his men behind the waggons containing the 
provisions, and they not only sustained the attack with- 
out flinching, but fought so bravely that they threw their 
assailants into confusion. As soon as it appeared that 
they began to give way Fastolf ordered the barricade to 
be removed, and the enemy were pursued with very great 
slaughter. Among the slain were six-and-twenty officers 
of distinction. 

3. The fall of Orleans seemed now inevitable. The 
policy of undertaking the siege of such a city had been 
doubted by Bedford in the first instance. The effort had 
certainly taxed the resources of England to the utmost; 
but apparently it was about to be crowned with success. 
Charles expected to be driven entirely from the central 
parts of France, and talked of retiring into Dauphin^. 
A proposal was made by the French to put Orleans in 
the hands of the Duke of Burgundy. It was scouted by 
the Regent Bedford in terms which perhaps increased 
the coolness of his ally. He was not the man, he said, 
to beat the bush that others might catch the birds. The 
besieged were reduced to almost utter despair, when one 
of the most marvellous occurrences in history put an end 
to their suspense. 

4. In the month of February 1429 — about the very 
time that Sir John Fastolf disconcerted the attempt of 
the French to surprise his convoy of herrings— a young 
woman in a remote province of France presented herself 
before the commanding officer of the district, declaring 
that she had a divine commission to succour Orleans 
and to conduct King Charles to Rheims, to be crowned 
after the manner of his ancestors. The name of this 
enthusiast was Jeanne d'Arc, or as some French anti- j 



1429. Tlie Siege of Orleans. 1 29 

buaries prefer to write it, Dare ; but for ages the French 
themselves have spelt it with an apostrophe, joan of 
and in English we have been accustomed to ^''^• 
call her Joan of Arc. She was a native of the village of 
Domremy, on the Meuse, in the duchy of Bar, on the 
borders of Lorraine. She was of poor but pious parents. 
Even from her girlish years she had seen visions and 
heard voices from Heaven, and so persuaded was she of 
her divine mission that she had kept herself unmarried 
against the wish of her father. The officer to whom she 
made known her intentions naturally thought her at first 
a person of deranged intellect ; but on further consider- 
ation he determined to comply with her request and send 
her to King Ckarles, who was then at Chinon in Tou- 
raine. Dressed and armed hke a man, she set out in 
the company of two neighbours, a herald, an archer, and 
two pages, on a journey of almost two hundred and fifty 
miles, through a country intersected by numerous rivers 
and mostly in the possession of the English. On March 5 
she arrived at Chinon, after eleven days' travelling. 

5. On her coming to the King it is related that she 
gave evidence, in more ways than one, of the possession 
of supernatural gifts. It is said that she identi- 
fied Charles in a dress like that of his courtiers, stories 
and revealed to him a secret known only to ^ ^"'^ ' 
himself. She also demanded and had given to her a sword, 
from a church in Touraine ; which sword, according to 
the most marvellous reports, she described minutely 
before seeing it, although it was buried in the ground 
beneath the altar. Whatever may have been the facts, 
she succeeded in persuading people that she had been 
sent either by God or by the Devil. Belief in all sorts of 
occult influences was in this age particularly strong, and 
Charles commissioned a number of divines to inquire as 
to the source of her inspiration. The purity of her 

K 



I30 Henry V I. ch. vii. 

patriotism — the genuineness of her rehgious feeling — were 
such as to make a sinister interpretation impossible, and 
the divines reported that she had clearly a call from Heaven. 
She was accordingly furnished with a charger, a suit of 
armour, and a banner after her own direction ; and with 
a squire and three other attendants she set forth upon 
her mission. She sent a formal summons to the Duke 
of Be'dford to raise the siege as he would avoid the wrath 
of God. This the English treated with the contempt 
which might have been expected. But the Maid came to 
Blois where a force had assembled to make a great effort 
for the relief of Orleans. She was allowed to take the 
command of this detachment, and she gave stringent 
orders to free the camp of all loose characters, and 
ordered every soldier to be confessed. She then, by a 
rapid march, arrived in two days before Orleans. After 
the first night's camping out she took the sacrament in 
presence of the troops. A multitude of dissolute soldiers, 
suddenly animated by a new spirit, bent their knees 
before their priests and did the same. The whole army 
was raised out of despondency to the highest pitch of en- 
thusiasm ; and rumours of the holiness and of the miracles 
of the Maid were repeated even in the English camp. 

6. Even where her over-confidence might have been 
disastrous it had the effect of increasing her repute. 
She had proposed to come upon Orleans by the right bank 
of the Loire through the thick of the English army. In 
this she was overruled by the generals, who took her the 
other way. But when she saw the river between her and 
the city, she insisted that the troops should return to Blois 
and go against Orleans by the north side. To satisfy her 
the main body of the army was dismissed, but she herself 
was persuaded to embark a few miles up the stream to 
conduct a convoy of provisions into the city. The wind 



1429. 



Joan of A re. 1 3 1 



and tide were contrary when she yielded to the entreaties 
of the marshals. But the wind changed, so that vessels 
came up from Orleans, and she embarked. At nightfall 
she entered the city, bringing victuals and stores for the 
garrison. She was received as if she had been an angel 
from heaven, and rode through the streets on a white 
charger, amid the acclamations of the people. 

7. After this she directed operations against some of 
the forts surrounding the city, and obtained possession 
of four successively after inflicting great losses on the 
besiegers. The English had lost all spirit for the fight. 
They were persuaded a power now fought against them 
that was more than human. Already the siege had lasted 
seven months, and it was difficult to maintain the strain 
m.uch longer. The besieging army withdrew on May 12, 
pursued by the French in its retreat. Misfortunes began 
to overtake the English arms on all sides. The Earl of 
Suffolk was made prisoner at the capture of Jargeau. 
The brave Lord Talbot was made prisoner at the battle 
of Patay. The Regent Bedford was forced to return 
once more to Paris, and wrote home to the government 
in England that the tide of success had been turned by 
' a limb of the Fiend,' called by the enemy the Pucelle. 
Such were the terms in which even he did not disdain to 
speak of the heroic Maid ! 

8. She now persuaded Charles to march to Rheims 
that he might be crowned. He set out at the head 
of 10,000 men, summoning the towns to surrender as 
he went along. After a short resistance Troyes capitu- 
lated, and Chalons followed its example. The citizens of 
Rheims then drove out the English garrison, Charles 
and presented the keys to Charles, who entered R^dms^ ^^ 
the city in triumph. The coronation took July 17. 
place the day after. 

9. The Maid had accomplished her mission, and 



132 Henry VI . ch. vii. 

would now have withdrawn once more into private hfe ; 
but the King persuaded her to remain in his service, and 
expressed his gratitude for what she had done by granting 
her native village of Domremy a perpetual exemption 
from tributes. The effect of the coronation was seen 
immediately afterwards in the surrender of a large 
number of other towns to Charles, while Bedford felt 
himself so weak that he did not dare hazard a blow in 
their defence. He sent pressing messages to England 
for reinforcements, and urged that, to counterbalance the 
coronation of Charles, the boy King Henry should also 
be crowned king of France. The English council agreed 
with this advice, but thought it desirable that he should 
Henry fii'st be crowned in England. That ceremony 

E^lT^d ^^ ^^'^^ accordingly performed on November 6 at 
Nov. 6, ' Westminster ; and as it implied that Henry, 
though only eight years old, entered then on the actual 
functions of royalty, the Parliament decreed a few days 
later that the title of Protector given to the Duke of 
Bedford and to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester should 
from that time cease. 

lo. Two whole years elapsed after the coronation at 
Westminster before Henry could be crowned in France. 
He went thither in 143c, accompanied by 
. 14^0. Cardinal Beaufort, leaving the Duke of Glou- 
cester in England as guardian of the realm. He seems 
to have stayed at Rouen the whole of that year and the 
and in next, and only towards the close of the year 

A^D^r^i ^43^ ^^ went to Paris, where he was crowned 
Dec. 16. on December 16. Bedford would fain have 

carried him through the country to Rheims and had the 
ceremony performed there ; but it was found impossible 
to make the attempt with safety. The journey, even to 
the capital, was not wholly free from danger ; for Charles 
had already approached dangerously near to Paris, while 



143 1. ^^^ Condonation in Paris. 133 

the Regent was in Normandy. The latter was also 
conscious that he could not greatly rely on the constancy 
of the Duke of Burgundy, to whom he gave up the pro- 
vinces of Champagne and La Brie ^ in order to secure his 
friendship. 

II. But in the meantime an event had occurred 
which revived considerably the spirits of the English. 
The Duke of Burgundy, gratified by the cession of 
Champagne, laid siege to Compiegne. The Pucelle, 
hearing of the attempt, threw herself into the town, not 
altogether, as it is supposed, to the satisfaction of the 
governor, who did not desire to share with a woman the 
glory of defending it. On May 25, 1431, she a.d. 1431. 
made a sortie, but was obliged to retire. Her ^^^^ ^5- 
retreat, however, was cut off, orders having been given, 
either by mistake or malice, to shut the gates ^ 

r . 1 .111-1 Capture of 

of the town and to raise the drawbridge, joan of 
Under these circumstances she was com- ^^* 
pelled to yield herself a prisoner to the officers of the 
Duke of Burgundy. The English were delighted beyond 
measure at the incident, and the Regent Bedford lost no 
time in obtaining from the Burgundian general her 
delivery into his own hands. The English government 
then instituted a process against her for witchcraft before 
ecclesiastical judges, by whom she was found guilty ; 
but on recanting her pretensions of a divine mission 
her life w^as spared, and she was condemned to be im- 
prisoned for life and fed on bread and water. This 
humiliation might have been sufficient to satisfy the 
vengeance of her enemies ; but further punishment was 
in store for her. In her recantation she abjured from 

1 La Brie was a district to the west of Champagne proper, 
nearly corresponding with the modern department of Seine and 
Marne. 



134 Henry VL 



CH. VII. 



thenceforth the wearing of male attire ; but after her 
return to prison her own armour was left in her way, and 
she could not resist the temptation to put it on. The act 
was observed by spies, a new information was laid against 
her, and it was at once determined to carry out the capital 
sentence already passed upon her, as upon a 
burned as relapsed heretic. She was burned to death 
a eretic. -^ ^^ market-place at Rouen, on May 30, 143 1. 
12. The cruelty and vindictiveness of this wicked act 
did not help to retrieve the fortunes of the English in 
France. Superstitious fear seems to have largely in- 
fluenced her persecutors, but they were not relieved from 
it by her death. The Church had pronounced sentence 
upon her, most of the judges were her own countrymen, 
and even Charles did not make an effort to save her ; 
but the English themselves could not feel satisfied that 
all was fair. The majority might still talk of her as a 
witch and a sorceress, but those who had witnessed her 
deeds and sufferings were not without a sense that an 
innocent woman had been slain and that God would 
take vengeance on the act. The war went on languidly. 
The French obtained possession of Chartres, and the 
lukewarmness of Burgundy as an ally was more manifest 
every day. At home, people were becoming weary of 
the cost of the protracted struggle. Efforts were made 
by the Pope to negotiate a peace, which came to nothing, 
as the English refused to acknowledge Charles as King of 
France. But Bedford himself was well aware that his 
power of maintaining the struggle was no longer what it 
had been. 

III. Gloucester and Beatifort. Negotiations for Peace. 

I. In England, from the very beginning of Henr^^^s 
reign, there had been a struggle for power between Hum- 
phrey Duke of Gloucester and Henry Beaufort, Bishop of 



1 43 1. Gloucester and Beaufort, 135 

Winchester, afterwards Cardinal. The former was the 
brother, the latter the uncle, of the late King Henry V. 
We have already mentioned that the council Rivalry of 
from the first disallowed the claim of Glouces- ^}}f ^"^^ °^ 

Lrloucester 

ter to be regent under his brother's will, and and Beau- 
appointed him merely Protector. But the of win-' °^ 
duke was dissatisfied with his limited powers, Chester. 
and showed a great inclination to presume upon his 
position as the King's leading councillor. Beaufort took 
the lead in opposing these pretensions, and his oppo- 
sition to the duke led to a number of unseemly quarrels, 
in which the bishop had certainly the advantage in point 
of wisdom, while his rival endangered the affairs of the 
whole kingdom by his extraordinar)- indiscretion. At 
one time his conduct, besides being scandalous in point 
of morality, very nearly alienated the Duke of Burgundy 
from the English alHance. He enjoyed, however, con- 
siderable popularity, and was called 'the good Duke 
Humphrey,' while the manifest ambition of Beaufort, and 
the fact of his being a churchman, prevented him from 
gaining the entire goodwill of the nation. 

2. In 1427 Beaufort received from the Pope the 
dignity of cardinal, and was shortly after appointed papal 
legate in England. This at once created a ^ 

° . ° Beaufort 

new subject of dispute. A cardinal was a made a 
servant of the Church, not of the State. He ^^^^^^^• 
was a vassal of the Pope, not a minister of England ; 
and the question was raised whether by the mere accept- 
ance of such a position Beaufort had any longer a right 
to sit in the King's council or to enjoy the revenues of 
the bishopric of Winchester. Gloucester strongly urged 
his exclusion, and for some time the council entertained 
so much doubt upon the question that they refused to come 
to a decision, and desired the cardinal to abstain from 
attending the chapters of the Garter till the King shou'd 
come of age. 



136 Henry VL ch. vii. 

3 The cardinal, however, soon made it evident that 
his promotion in the Church did not by any means make 
him less zealous for the interests of his country. It was 
Rome he intended to betray, not England. His dignity 
had been conferred on him that he might make war on 
The cm- heretics, and the Pope had issued a bull for a 
-^'l?nst the crusade against the Hussites in Bohemia. 
Hussites. Beaufort petitioned the King's council for 
leave to publish it in England, and to collect subscriptions 
and raise men for the enterprise. This was granted, but 
the number of men was reduced to half of the demand 
on the ground that men vv^ere so much needed for the 
defence of the kingdom. Still, it was the Church's cause. 
Englishmen were invited by the cardinal to enlist for the 
benefit of their souls. A force was conveyed across the 
sea ; but before it left England, it was arranged between 
the council and the cardinal that it should be detained in 
France and employed against the enemies of England. 
Joan of Arc had already raised the siege of Orleans, and 
was conveying Charles to be crowned at Rheims. It was 
a great crisis, and Beaufort could excuse himself to the 
Pope by pretending that the expedition had been di- 
verted from its professed object against his will. 

4. By this discreditable juggle the cardinal had at 
least proved to the satisfaction of the council and the 
House of Lords that he preferred at heart the interests of 
his country to those of the Church. Notwithstanding that 
the fact was unprecedented of a cardinal taking part in 
the deliberations of the King's council, he was invited to 
resume his seat there on the understanding that he should 
absent himself whenever matters came to be discussed 
between England and the court of Rome. Both Houses of 
Beaufort's Parliament commended his loyalty, and it was 
ascendancy, evident that he had completely re-established 
his ascendancy. Duke Humphrey, on the other hand, 



1436. Gloucester and Beaufort, 137 

was divested of his title of Protector at the coronation, 
and though he never desisted, while he lived, from his 
efforts to supplant or injure his rival, those efforts were 
from this time utterly ineffectual. 

5. These disputes at home affected seriously the 
interests of England in the war with France ; and after 
the humiliation inflicted on the Enghsh arms by Joan of 
Arc, other causes contributed to render the struggle 
altogether a hopeless one for England. The Duke of 
Burgundy cooled in his friendship for his allies. The 
Duchess of Bedford, his sister, died. Con- 
ferences for peace took place at Arras, and ferences, 
after their failure the Duke of Burgundy made ^'^' ^^^^' 

a separate treaty with France. The English wished for 
a termination of the war, but still looked upon the whole 
of France as theirs by right, and would only consent to 
allow Charles a portion of his own dominions as an 
appanage for w^hich he was to do fealty. At ^^ ^ 
length the Regent Bedford died, heart-broken ^ept. 14. 
at seeing his whole policy undermined. Owing to divided 
counsels, the English government delayed the appoint- 
ment of his successor until the French had , ^ , ^^ 

A. D. 1430. 

already retaken Paris ; and though the man April 13. 
whom they at length appointed as regent proved himself 
both a statesman and a general of great ability, he was 
ill-supported at home, and after a ver}^ short time he was 
recalled. 

6. That man was Richard Duke of York, the son of 
that Earl of Cambridge who was put to death for con- 
spiracy against Henry V. (See Chap. V. ii. 

^ \ A r 1 • • \ ^ Richard 

5, 0.) Alter his appomtment he retook a num- Duke of 
ber of towns and castles which had been lost, ^°'"'^' 
but he had not been a twelvemonth Regent when he was 
recalled, and his place was given to Richard Beauchamp, 
Earl of Warwick, who did nothing remarkable, and died 



138 Henry VL ch. vii. 

two years after his appointment. York was then made 
Regent a second time ; but it was now utterly 
'"■ ^^^'^' impossible for the English to do more than 
stand on the defensive. The loss of the Burgundian 
alliance made it difficult for them to hold their own in a 
hostile country, and endangered even Calais, which lay 
near Philip's Flemish territories. He had, in fact, already 
once laid siege to it, and was only driven away by an army 
sent over into Normandy under the Duke of Gloucester. 

7. Both countries had great cause to wish for peace. 
France was overrun by robber bands, popularly called 
^ ,, ecorcheurs, or flayers, who not only waylaid 

Robber / ^ , . . . . . , , 

bands in and plundered their victims, but stripped them 

France. ^^ evcry vcstige of clothing, leaving them no- 

thing but their shirts. These freebooters attacked de- 
fenceless men of either party, and could not be controlled 
by either government. Nothing could exceed the misery 
of a country so long desolated by war and rapine. 

8. But the need of peace for England was even greater, 
and the English council, under the guidance of Cardinal 
Beaufort, thought that it might be promoted by the 

liberation of the Duke of Orleans, who had 

Liberation . . . _ . , 

of the Duke remained a prisoner m England ever since 
of Orleanh. ^j^^ ddi^s of Agincourt. This proposition was 
directly opposed to the advice given by Henry V. on his 
death-bed, and it met with the strongest opposition from 
the Duke of Gloucester ; but the young King, who was 
now rapidly advancing to m.anhood, deferred much more to 
the advice of his grand-uncle the cardinal than to that of 
his uncle Gloucester. The Duke of Orleans engaged 
that if permitted to return to his country he would use 
his best efforts for peace. He took oath never to bear 
arms against England, and to pay a ransom of 60,000 
crowns, which was to be remitted to him if his efforts for 
peace were successful ; and he was allowed to go. 



1 44 1 . Negotiations for Peace. 1 3 9 

9. When the Duke of Orleans was about to take this 
oath, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, to show his dis- 
pleasure, abruptly left the council and took his barge. 
His feelings were undoubtedly shared by a large part of 
the nation ; but his influence was less than it had ever 
been, and next year he was made to undergo a great 
humiliation. His private life had been very discredit- 
able. He had married in 1423 the heiress of the Count of 
Hainault, a lady who had a husband then alive, and who 
had only been able to obtain a divorce from him by ap- 
plying to the Antipope Benedict. To vindicate his claim 
to her possessions he had invaded the Low Countries, 
and by so doing had almost provoked the Duke of Bur- 
gundy even then to renounce his alliance with England. 
Yet after all he got tired of her, and began to take plea- 
sure in the society of another woman named Eleanor 
Cobham, whom he first made his mistress and afterwards 
his wife. At the period of which we are now speaking 
this woman was called Duchess of Gloucester. 

10. Suddenly the Duchess Eleanor was accused of 
witchcraft and treason. Roger Bolingbroke, a chaplain 
of the duke her husband, was famous for his 
astronomical learning, and had been led by the The' Du- 
study of occult science to practise the art of ^j^^^ °^ 
necromancy. He was arrested, and exhibited accused of 
at St. Paul's some wax images and other ap- 
paratus with which he had practised divination ; after 
which he was drawn, hanged, and quartered. But it was 
found that he and one Margery Jourdemain, commonly 
called the Witch of Eye, had been employed by the 
duchess to destroy the King's life by incantations. The 
process consisted in making an image of wax like the 
King which they by degrees consumed, with various spells, 
it being expected that the King's life would gradually 
waste away as the image was acted upon. 



140 Henry VI. 



CH. VII. 



II. It would seem that Dame Eleanor had been 
originally led to take counsel of these persons by her own 
anxiety to know her future destiny. If Henry happened 
to die unmarried or without an heir, her husband stood 
next in the succession, and the prospect of being one day 
queen inflamed her ambition. She inquired of the magi- 
cian and of the witch how long Henry was likely to live ; 
and from this it was but a short step to use the forbidden 
arts to hasten his end. Her ambition, however, was her 
ruin; and the discovery of her dealings with the sorcerers 
threw additional discredit on her whole past life. It was 
declared that she had originally employed love potions 
to secure the affections of the duke, and to draw him 
into his second, not very creditable marriage. Never- 
theless, out of consideration for the duke, the punish- 
ment of her crime against the King was mitigated. 
Instead of being made to suffer as a traitor, she was 
compelled to do public penance for her breach of Christian 
morality. On three different days she walked through 
the streets of London with a taper in her hand ; after 
w^hich she was handed over to the custody of Sir Thomas 
Stanley, to be imprisoned for life. Her accomplice, the 
Witch of Eye, w^as apprehended at Westminster, and 
was burned to death at Smithfield the day after Boling- 
broke's execution. 

IV. T/ie Kmg's Marriage. Deaths of Gloticester afid 
Beaufort. 

I. The young King had now come to years of maturity, 
but he had received his political education mainly from 
Cardinal Beaufort, and he displayed little in- 
character, dependence of judgment as he grew up. He 
was a prince of amiable disposition, and free from all the 
ordinary forms of youthful vice, but his intellectual 



1444. ^^^^ King 's Marriage, 1 4 1 

endowments were slender, and he became a complete 
partizan of his grand-uncle the cardinal. His uncle 
Gloucester he looked upon with positive aversion, partly 
perhaps in consequence of his immoral hfe and the 
scandal arising from the incident of Eleanor Cobham, 
but also, no doubt, in great part for his persistent advo- 
cacy of the policy of continuing the war. For Henry^'s 
ardent love for peace, associated in his mind with the 
principles of Christianity and religion, on which he de- 
sired his government to be founded, caused him to give 
ready ear to pohticians who offered to point out a way 
of terminating the long-standing war wuth France. 

2. Among these politicians there was now another 
besides Beaufort w^ho began to have considerable in- 
fluence. William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, 

A.D. 1444. 

the second son of that earl who had been The Earl of 
chancellor to Richard II.— a brave man, who mo^ei^th'e''' 
had distinguished himself in battle with the King's mar- 
French, and had once been taken prisoner — Margaret of 
urged upon Henry the policy of a match with "-^°^' 
Margaret daughter of Rene Duke of Anjou, titular King 
of Naples and Jerusalem. She was a woman of great 
force of character and considerable personal attractions. 
But the motive which decided Henry in her favour was 
the same that had induced him to liberate the Duke of 
Orleans. Her father was the brother of Charles's queen, 
Mary of Anjou ; and Henry considered that by marrying 
^Margaret he would open a surer way for peace with 
France than by any other method. He accordingly 
commissioned Suffolk to negotiate the match, and a 
treaty of peace or truce at the same time. 

3. The task was a delicate one. English prejudice 
might be expected to view such a marriage with dislike, 
not only because the lady was related to the French king, 
but because the compact for her marriage included a 



142 Henry VI, 



CH. VII. 



cession of territoiy to her father. The provinces of 
Maine and Anjou which were then partly in the posses- 
sion of the English and partly were continually overrun 
by them, were to be given up to Rene, while at the same 
time, in consideration of Rene's poverty, Henry was to 
accept his daughter without a marriage portion. Suffolk, 
however, accepted the commission, and met the Duke of 
Orleans at Tours, with whom he arranged a truce pre- 
parator}^ to a more enduring peace. The marriage treaty 
was then concluded, and Suffolk shortly after his return 
home went over again as Henry's proxy to 
Henry^^* marr}' her and convey her to England. She 
marries her, accordinglv crosscd the sea and landed at 

May 30. * ' 

Porchester, was married to Henry in person 
at Titchfield a few days after, and a month later was 
crowned at Westminster. 

4. Suffolk now rose highly in the royal favour. He 
was raised from the dignity of earl to that of marquis, 

and four years later to that of duke. The 
made a Oucen especially felt that she owed him much, 

^^^^' and the Queen now ruled the King. Suffolk 

became the leading councillor, whose ascendancy was 
past dispute. The Duke of Gloucester had less weight 
than ever, and even Cardinal Beaufort was thrown into 
the shade. But on one point he knew that his conduct 
could not escape criticism. No one ventured to speak 
a word against the King's marriage itself. The Duke of 
Gloucester even headed an address in parliament, recom- 
mending Suffolk to the King's favour for promoting it. 
But the terms on which it had been negotiated were such 
as could not possibly be acceptable to the nation, and 
notwithstanding many precautions taken by Suffolk to 
guard himself against censure, a day of reckoning was 
not far off. It was not merely that the giving had been 
all on one side, and that Henr}- had accepted a bride 



1445- ^he King's Marriage, 143 

without a portion ; but he had given up to King Ren^, 
the ally and relative of Charles, two rich and important 
provinces which were the keys of Normandy. Moreover, 
peace was not made, because, as might have been ex- 
pected, the very anxiety for it manifested by Henry only 
served too well the purposes of Charles. Truce only was 
concluded from time to time with a view to a more lasting 
treaty, but difficulties were always found about the final 
settlement, and in the meanwhile the English still put off 
the fulfilment of the compact with regard to the cession 
of Maine. 

5. At the same time the Duke of Gloucester — ' the 
good Duke Humphrey,^ who had always opposed anything 
like concessions to France — fell more than ever under the 
King's displeasure. Suffolk had secretly accused him to 
the King of treason, and it was determined by Henry that 
he should be arrested. A Parliament was summoned to 
meet at Bury St. Edmund's in the beginning 
of the year 1447. Some unusual measures ' ' ^^^'^' 
were taken which seemed to be for the protection of the 
peace against an apprehended revolt. The Duke of 
Gloucester came from Devizes to take his place among 
the peers. He was attended by a retinue of eighty 
gentlemen on horseback; but this does not appear to 
have been a greater company than his rank was sup- 
posed to warrant. On his arrival he was ^^^ , 
placed under arrest by four or five noblemen death of the 
sent to him for the purpose by the king. A Gloucester, 
few days afterwards he died jin his lodging. ^^^- ^3- 

6. Suspicions at once began to be entertained that he 
had been privately murdered ; and the popular odium 
rested upon Suffolk as the author of the deed. The case 
is certainly not free from doubt, but it may very well be 
believed that the death was really due to natural causes. 
The occurrence, however, added greatly to the deep 



144 Henry VL 



CH. VII. 



feeling of dissatisfaction with which Suffolk's influence 
over the King was now generally regarded. A number 
of Gloucester's followers had been arrested at the same 
time as himself on the pretence that they had conspired 
to release Dame Eleanor Cobham and make the duke her 
husband king. Some of them were condemned to die as 
traitors, but at the intercession of a London clergyman 
their lives were pardoned by Henry, and after being 
actually tied up and hanged on the gibbet they were cut 
down alive and set free. But the charge of disloyalty 
against the Duke of Gloucester was very generally disbe- 
lieved, and attempts were made in successive parliaments 
to clear his memory of the stain. Owing, however, to 
the King's own strong belief, whether well or ill founded, 
in his uncle's guilt, these attempts v/ere for a long time 
unsuccessful. 

7. Within a very short time after the death of 
Gloucester his old rival, Cardinal Beaufort, also died. 
Death of The idea that Gloucester had been murdered, 
Cardinal ^^^ ^j^^ £^^^ ^^^^ Bcaufort SO soon followed 

xseauiort, 

April II. him to the grave, made a deep impression on 

the popular imagination. In after times it was said that 
the Cardinal had died in agonies of remorse ; and this 
view of the case is vividly represented by Shakspeare in 
the play. But there is very good warrant for believing 
it to be unfounded. A witness tells us that when he 
was on the point of death he summoned the clergy of 
his cathedral to his palace, caused requiems and other 
services to be chanted for his departing soul, ordered 
his will to be read aloud and some corrections to be 
made in it, and finally took a solemn farewell of all his 
friends. Apparently, on the rise of Suffolk his advice 
was no longer asked on state affairs, and he applied 
himself from that time undisturbed to the duties of his 
bishopric. 



1448. The Kings Marriage. 145 

V. Loss of Normandy — Fall of the Diike of Stiffblk. 

1. The Marquis of Suffolk, as he was at this time 
called, though soon afterwards he was made duke, 
was now the only minister or statesman whose advice 
was much regarded by the King. But Suffolk 
after the death of Gloucester the complaints ""popular, 
against his pohcy, especially in relation to the stipulated 
cession of Maine and Anjou, became so general that he 
himself requested that his conduct in that transaction 
might be inquired into. It was accordingly 
examined by the council, who pronounced 

him free from blame ; and a proclamation was issued 
shortly afterwards forbidding anyone to propagate scan- 
dalous rumours against him on pain of the King^s dis- 
pleasure. As yet, however, Maine had not been actually 
delivered. As for Anjou, it had never been really in pos- 
session of the English, so that no delivery of it was 
necessary. But the French king, weary of 
the long delay made by the English in fulfil- 
ling their engagements, sent an army to besiege Le Mans. 
The English authorities remonstrated, and an embassy 
was sent over in great haste to settle the matter without 
hostilities. Finally the garrison gave up posses- 
sion, but protested that in yielding up the city 
they did not yield up the rights of Henry as sovereign. 

2. But in truth the loss of such a province as Maine 
weakened the hold of the English even in the neighbour- 
ing duchy of Normandy, which was now all that remained 
to them in the north of France except Calais. The 
government of Normandy was at this time in the hands 
of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, a nephew of 
Cardinal Beaufort, of whose immense wealth he inherited 
the principal portion. His influence with the King or 
with Suffolk had procured him this appointment, and the 

L 



146 Henry VL 



CIl. VII. 



Duke of York had been recalled from France to make 
way for him. Unfortunately, he proved himself a sadly 
incompetent ruler, and the Duke of York, whom he had 
replaced, was led afterwards to criticise his conduct with 
extreme severity. It was a time when it was peculiarly 
important not to give needless provocation to the King 
of France. Yet with Somerset's full connivance the 
A.D. 1449. forces that had been withdrawn from Maine 
cipull-e of ^^^^ ^y assault and pillaged the rich manu- 
Fougeres. facturing town of Fougeres, on the borders of 
the duchy of Brittany. 

3. The act was a perfidious violation of the truce with 
France, in which Brittany had been expressly included. 
It was disavowed by Somerset, who pretended that it 
had been done without authority ; but it was impossible 
that Charles could be deceived by so impudent a false- 
hood, and he soon repaid the outrage by a similar 
manoeuvre. He made a secret treaty with the Duke of 
Brittany. A body of men, professedly in the service of 
the duke, took by slirprise the town of Pont de I'Arche 
on the Seine — a most important position for the French 
in the recovery of Normandy. When complaints were 
made by the English, Charles offered to restore it if they 
would restore Fougeres. All attempts, however, to 
adjust the matter by conference proved ineffectual. The 
French followed up their advantage by taking one or 
War re- two places more. At last open war was 
newed. declared, and Somerset found when it was too 
late that he was utterly unprepared for the emergency. 

4. He wrote over to England in alarm about the 
strength of the enemy's musters and the weakness of the 
English garrisons ; but before any efficient succours could 
be sent a number of towns had already been recovered 
Rouen ^Y ^^^ French. In October 1449 they laid 
besieged. siege to Rouen, drove the English out of the 



I450. Loss of Normandy, 1 47 

town into the castle, and there shut up Somerset fiimself, 
who, to procure his own liberty, had to surrender not only 
that city but several others, leaving the gallant Talbot 
Earl of Shrewsbury as a hostage till they were delivered 
up. At the same time the Duke of Britanny invaded 
Lower Normandy and recovered Fougeres. By the end 
of the year nearly the whole of Normandy was lost, 
except Cherbourg, Caen, Bayeux, and a few other towns 
on or near the coast. In a very few months L^^g ^f 
more, even these were gone. Cherbourg, the Normandy, 
last English stronghold, surrendered on August 12, 1450. 
5. As the news of these successive reverses reached 
England, the general indignation against Suffolk's govern- 
ment could no longer be restrained. Political ballads 
were circulated in which he w^as designated jackan- 
apes — the first instance that has yet been found of the 
use of this expression. He was rhymed at as the ape 
with his clog who had tied Talbot our good dog. The 
people at large could hardly be persuaded that selfishness 
and covetousness were not at the bottom of the mis- 
management which had created such disasters, and a 
most dangerous spirit began to display itself in acts of 
popular violence. At the beginning of the 
year 1450 Adam de Moleyns, Bishop of Chi- ^'^' ^^^'^' 
Chester, who was keeper of the Privy Seal and one of the 
most learned men in England, was sent to Portsmouth to 
pay the wages of some soldiers and sailors. He was a 
w^ealthy but a very avaricious man. The King's treasur}^ 
was ill provided with money, and he endeavoured to 
persuade the men to be content with less than their due. 
But they broke out into a mutiny, cried out Murder of 
that Normandy had been sold to the French, ^^V?^-^u°p 

•' ^ of Chiches- 

and accused the bishop of bemg privy to the ter, Jan. 9. 
transaction ; on which they fell upon him and put him to 
death. 



148 Henry VI. 



CH. VII. 



6. Some words uttered by this murdered bishop just 
before his death were reported eagerly by Suffolk's 
enemies as containing serious reflections on his conduct ; 
and the circumstance probably contributed to his ruin. 
c, cr ^^ ■ Within 3, mouth aiter he was impeached in 

buffolk im- ^ 

peached in parliament. He was accused of having been 
par lamen . ^^^ many years a secret friend of France, in- 
fluenced by corrupt motives to procure the liberation of 
the Duke of Orleans and the cession of Anjou and Maine. 
It was also alleged that he had betrayed the designs of 
England to her enemies, and that he had formed an 
ambitious project for the elevation of his son to the throne 
by proposing to marry him to Margaret Beaufort, daughter 
of the last Duke of Somerset, who stood next in succes- 
sion to the crown. It was even insinuated that had the 
match taken effect he would have attempted to depose 
the King — a charge altogether preposterous and incred- 
ible. In another bill of indictment his whole policy was 
severely censured and attributed to corrupt and treason- 
able motives. 

7. The duke made answer to the first bill before the 
King and lords, entirely denying the truth of the accusa- 
tions, and offering to prove them false in any manner the 
King chose to direct. As to the second he declined to 
ask a trial by his peers, but trusted he had sufficiently 
vindicated his loyalty, and expressed himself ready to 
submit to any judgment the King might think proper to 
pronounce. On this he was told by the lord chancellor 
in the King's name that on the more serious charges 
Henry would not pronounce him either guilty or innocent ; 
but, as he had himself agreed to submit to anything the 
Suffolk is King thought expedient, Henry, in the exercise 
Lanished, of his own discretion, and not by way of sen- 
tence, bade him absent himself from England for five 
years from the first day of May following. 



1450. 



Fall of Sit jf oik. 1 49 



8. This was imitating the weakness and the tyranny 
of Richard II.; and, as the issue proved, it protected 
neither Suffolk nor the King. The duke went down to 
Ipswich and embarked for Flanders. A London mob 
endeavoured to intercept him before leaving Westminster, 
but he took ship in safety. At sea, however, he was 
pursued by a ship called the ^ Nicholas of the Tower,' the 
crew of which insisted on having him delivered up to 
them, and he was saluted by the master with the words 
' Welcome, traitor ! ' He was then told that he must die, 
and after being allowed a day to confess him- ^^^ ^^^^_ 
self, he was beheaded in a small boat. The deredatsea. 
body was then brought to land and thrown upon the sands 
at Dover. 



VI. Jack Cade's Rebellion — Loss of Gidenne and 
Gasco/ty. 

I. Within a month after the murder of the Duke of 
Suffolk a great rebeUion took place in Kent and Sussex. 
The people complained of extortions practised a.d. 1450. 
by the King's officers in the collection of the R^e^i^euion^'^ 
revenue, and also that their grievances could May. 
not be heard because the knights of the shire were not 
freely elected. As their leader they selected a man of 
some ability, who called himself by the name of John 
Mortimer, and professed to be a cousin of the Duke of 
York ; but it was afterwards discovered that he was an 
Irishman, whose real name was Jack Cade. He was, 
however, a very good disciplinarian and kept his forces 
together in excellent order. On June i they encamped 
upon Blackheath. The King was at that time holding a 
Parliament at Leicester; but he immediately dissolved 
the legislature and came up to London. With an army 
of 20,000 men he marched against the rebels, who with- 



150 Henry VI. ch. vii. 

drew before him, so that the King occupied their position 
on Blackheath. A detachment under Sir Humphrey 
Stafford and his cousin Wilham Stafford went forward to 
pursue the insurgents, but was defeated at Sevenoaks and 
both the Staffords slain. The nobles who were with the 
King now declared that they could not keep their men 
together unless the King would consent to dismiss and 
punish some of his principal advisers. To satisfy them. 
Lord Say was arrested and sent to the Tower. But the 
concession was of little service. The royal forces dis- 
banded, and though the city of London offered the King 
their services, he thought it best to withdraw and retired 
to Kenilworth. 

2. The result of this was that the citizens consented 
to admit the rebels. Cade passed over London Bridge 
with his followers. He struck his sword against London 
Stone and said, ' Now is Mortimer lord of this city.' He 
caused Lord Say to be fetched from the Tower and 
arraigned before a court at the Guildhall. The unfortu- 
nate nobleman claimed to be tried by his peers ; but he 
was hurried off and beheaded in Cheapside. One 
Crowmer, sheriff of Kent, who was Lord Say's son-in-law, 
was beheaded at the same time in Cade's presence ; and 
the two heads were barbarously carried through the 
streets on poles and made to kiss each other. Cade now 
began to relax disciphne. He entered the houses of un- 
popular citizens and pillaged them, so that men who had 
anything to lose became alarmed for their property. For 
three days he held possession of the city, retiring every 
evening into Southwark for the night ; but the mayor 
and aldermen applied to Lord Scales, who had the keep- 
ing of the Tower, for a force to drive him out ; and a 
hard-fought battle took place on London Bridge during 
the night between the 5th and 6th of July. In the morn- 
ing the result was still uncertain, when a truce was 



I450. Jack Cades Rebellion. 151: 

agreed to for a few hours, and such of the King's coun- 
cillors as remained in London offered a general pardon 
to the insurgents on condition of their laying down their 
arms. The offer was very generally accepted, and most 
of the men returned homewards. Cade was pardoned 
under the name of Mortimer, his real name being still 
unknown. But doubtful, perhaps, lest he might still be 
made responsible, he broke open the King's Bench ana 
Marshalsea prisons and formed a new company out of 
the criminals detained there. With this force he retired 
to Rochester and tried to raise new disturbances, but 
these were soon quelled, and Cade was pursued out of 
Kent into Sussex, where he was captured by Alexander 
I den, a gentleman who was about this time appointed 
sheriff of the former county in place of the murdered 
Crowmer. On being taken, however, he received a 
mortal wound and he died before he could be conveyed 
to London. His head was fixed upon London Bridge 
with the face looking towards Kent. 

3. It was now evident that the King required the aid 
of some strong hand to administer the government. 
Even before the fall of Suffolk there had been much 
complaint that he did not employ the Duke of York to 
redress the wrongs of the people. But the Duke of York 
had in fact been sent to Ireland as the King's lieutenant 
some time before, mainly through the influence of Somer- 
set, and in order that he might be out of the way. The 
crisis, however, was now so urgent that he ap- ^^^^ v>\\V^ 
pears to have thought himself justified in of York 
coming over without leave. He crossed the from 
Channel to Beaumaris in Anglesea, where at- Ireland, 
tempts were made to stop his landing, then collecting a 
body of his followers in Wales, marched on to London 
and presented himself before the King. Efforts were 
made in several places to arrest his progress or prevent 



152 Henry VL 



CH. VII. 



his friends from joining him upon the way ; but they 
were ineffectual as regards himself. When he reached 
the King's presence, the first thing that he did was to 
demand and obtain a repudiation by Henry himself of 
certain imputations of disloyalty that had been made 
against him, and which had been the pretext of many 
attempts against his person. He then presented a 
petition for better administration of justice, complaining 
that persons indicted of treason or accused of it by pub- 
lic rumour were not brought to trial or even put under 
arrest ; and he so far prevailed that the King promised 
to establish a new council, of which York himself should 
be a member, to inquire into all abuses. 

4. The Duke of Somerset, who had come over from 
Normandy just before York himself came over from 
Ireland, now found himself in a painful situation. Fa- 
voured though he was by the court, he was one of the 
most unpopular men in England. He was generally 
considered responsible for the surrender of Caen and the 
total loss of Normandy ; and when Parliament met 
towards the close of the year to consider the state of 
matters in France, he failed to satisfy the peers of the 
integrity of his conduct. He was accordingly 

Somerset is.*^,, ^ . . . ^ ^ 

arrested ; placed undcr arrcst. But owmg to the favour 
afte?°e^ of the court he did not long remain in custody, 
leased and The King, in defiance of popular opinion, not 
only released him from confinement, but made 
him captain of Calais and gave him the control of the 
royal household. For a whole year afterwards his 
ascendancy was undisputed, and the Duke of York found 
A T^ T.fr it advisable to withdraw from court to his 

A.D. 1451- 

Loss of own castle of Ludlow. But meanwhile a 

and series of reverses overtook the English arms 

Gascony. -^^ France, and the loss of Normandy was fol- 
lowed by the no less complete loss of Guienne and Gas- 



1 45 1 . Loss of Gideiine and Gascoity. 1 5 3 

cony. First Bordeaux capitulated, then Bayonne ; then 
the whole south of France surrendered, and Calais was 
now all that was left of English possessions upon the 
Continent. Nor was even this last stronghold safe ; for 
not only at this time, but during the whole remainder of 
Henry's reign, there were continual alarms lest the French 
should recover Calais also. 

5. It was impossible that the Duke of York could view 
this state of matters with indifference, — especially when 
his rival Somerset had the ear of the King and was in- 
stilling continually into Henry's mind distrust and sus- 
picion against himself He accordingly mus- York 
tered a number of his followers and marched London^ ^^ 
up to London. The King and Somerset had a.d. 1452. 
full warning, as York had made no secret of his inten- 
tions, and having collected another army on their side, 
set out to meet him. York, however, avoided an engage- 
ment and pressed on to London, which he hoped would 
have opened its gates to him ; but being denied entrance 
there, he crossed the Thames at Kingston Bridge and 
marched into Kent, taking up his position at Dartford. 
The King's army followed and encamped a few miles 
from him upon Blackheath. A battle might ^^ ^ 

., , , , -, r 1 March i. 

now easily have taken place, but some of the 
lords on the King's side made proposals for a compro- 
mise, and Bishop Waynflete of Winchester, with the 
Earls of Salisbury and Warwick and some other noble- 
men, were sent to the Duke of York in embassy to ask 
the reason why he appeared in arms. The duke replied 
that he intended no ill to the King or his council, but 
only desired the removal of the Duke of Somerset and 
other persons by whom the people had been misgoverned. 
Several of the lords on the King's side were so far favour- 
able to this object, that they induced the King to return 
an answer that Somerset should be placed in custody 



154 Henry VL 



CH. VII. 



until he had acquitted himself of such charges as York 
He is per- would bring against him. With this promise 
suadedto ^^ Duke of York was so entirely satisfied 

dismiss nis J 

forces; but that he at once broke up his camp, dismissed 
kept with his army, and repaired alone to the King's 
him. ^gj^l- |.Q declare his loyalty. But here he found 

himself deceived. Somerset had not been placed in con- 
finement according to promise, but was attending on the 
King just as before ; and the Duke of York had in fact 
placed himself in the power of his rival. 

6. Somerset, however, did not dare to make an ex- 
treme use of this advantage. The duke had still on the 
Welsh borders about 10,000 men, who, it was said, were 
actually on the march to London, led by his son Edward 
Earl of March, a boy of ten years of age. It was resolved, 
therefore, merely to demand from him an oath of allegi- 
ance as a guarantee for his future loyalty. This oath he 
A.D. 1452. ^oo\ at St. PauFs on March 10, 1452, and was 
March lo. allowed to go at large. 

7. After this the King issued a general amnesty on 
Good Friday, April 7, and civil dissensions wxre for a 
Attempt to while allayed. Towards the close of the same 
recover year an attempt was made to recover Guienne 
^^menne ^^^ Gascony from the French. The inhabi- 
Gascony. tants of those provinces found themselves more 
severely taxed by their new masters than they had been 
when under English rule, and they offered their allegiance 
again to the King of England. A force was despatched 
under Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury, which at once took 
possession of Bordeaux and in a wonderfully short space 
of time succeeded in recovering for a while nearly all the 
A D. 1453. ^^^^ provinces. But in the beginning of the 
June. following June, the French king, having care- 
fully matured his plans, retook, one by one, the fortresses 
north of the Gironde, and laid siege to Castillon on the 



1453- Loss of Gicicnne and Gascony. 155 

Dordogne. This place was important as giving its pos- 
sessors free navigation into the Gironde ; and the Earl of 
Shrewsbury, hearing that it was in danger, suddenly left 
Bordeaux with a rather inadequate force to compel the 
enemy if possible to raise the siege. Urged on by a 
false report that the French were in retreat, he pursued 
in the direction of their supposed flight, and found a well- 
ordered army with artillery drawn up in battle array. 
With heedless impetuosity he rushed upon the enemy, his 
followers uttering their usual war-cry, ^A Talbot I St. 
George ! ' His gallant army was mowed down r^^\\^^^ ^e. 
by the fire of the French guns or cut to pieces feated and 
in hand-to-hand encounter, and he himself fell 
in the midst of the fight. His body was found covered 
with wounds on the limbs and on the face. 

8. With the death of Talbot all hope of the English 
retaining their hold on Gascony was practically at an 
end. Castillon at once surrendered ; then a number of 
other places ; and finally Bordeaux, after every ^ ^^ ^^^^ 
other stronghold had been evacuated, was October 17. 
obliged to submit to Charles. Thus was Gascony finally 
lost, after having been in English possession, ^^ ^ 
with little interruption, for the space of three finally lost, 
centuries. 

VII. The Khig^s Illness — Civil War, 
I. About this time King Henry fell seriously ill, and 
lost entirely, for the time, the use of his mental faculties. 
In October he became a father, the Oueen, xr 

- ? -^ J Henry loses 

alter eight years of married life, giving birth his faculties. 
to a son who was baptized by the name of Edward ; but 
the news could not be communicated to the King so as to 
reach his understanding. In this crisis the government 
naturally came to a standstill, and the councillors about 
the King, however unwillingly, could no longer avoid 



156 Henry VL 



CH. VII. 



seeking the advice of all the peers of the realm, including 
the Duke of York. The result was that before the end of 
the year Somerset was accused of treason by the Duke of 
Norfolk, and committed to the Tower. Norfolk demanded 
that the circumstances of the loss of Normandy and of 
Guienne should be made the subject of a criminal inquiry 
according to the laws of France ; and that other matters 
relating to Somerset's administration should be investi- 
gated according to the law of England. Somerset, how- 
ever, remained in prison a whole year and upwards of 
two months, without being brought to trial. 

2. Meanwhile the King^s infirmity made it necessary 
that some one should be appointed to act in his name. 
A*D. 1454. Parliament had been summoned to meet at 
Feb. II. Reading on February 11, 1454. It was imme- 

diately adjourned to Westminster and a commission was 
given to the Duke of York to act as the King's lieutenant 
on its reassembling. Soon after it met again Cardinal 
Kemp, Archbishop of Canterbury, died. He was an ac- 
complished statesman, and held at the time the office of 
lord chancellor. It was important that both the primacy 
and the lord chancellorship should be filled up without 
delay ; and a deputation was sent by the lords in Parlia- 
ment to Windsor to ascertain whether the King then 
possessed such a degree of consciousness as to comprehend 
the situation. But the deputation were obliged to report 
that their efforts were an utter failure. They waited on 
the King and expressed in the first place their anxiety to 
hear of his recovery ; but the King gave no answer. Not 
a word did he utter ; not a nod or faintest gesture 
implied that he understood a single thing that was said 
to him. To provide, therefore, for the necessaiy govern- 
York made nient of the kingdom, the lords in Parliament 
Protector. appointed the Duke of York Protector of 
England. 



1455. ^^^^ King's Illness. 157 

3. For the first time Margaret of Anjou now found 
herself entirely without influence in the affairs of the 
kingdom, which she had, in fact, ruled for years in her hus- 
band's name. York exercised his new power with vigour, 
and put down with remarkable facility some factious dis- 
turbances in the North. But his authority was shortlived ; 
for at Christmas the King regained possession -j^^ YJm'y 
of his faculties, and as a necessar}- conse- recovers. 
quence the power of the Protector terminated. The 
Duke of Somerset was still in prison, but 
was presently released on bail ; after which, ' ' ^^^'^' 
at a meeting of the council held before the King, his 
sureties were discharged and he was declared free from 
any suspicion of disloyalty. It was now clear that the 
King would be again guided entirely by the advice of 
Somerset. York was deprived even of the government 
of Calais. The Earl of Salisbury, who had been ap- 
pointed chancellor about the time that York was made 
Protector, w^as removed from his post, and Bourchier, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed in his room. 
York and his friends knew well that they were out of 
favour and held in great distrust. 

4. A council being summoned to meet at Leicester for 
the surety of the King's person, the Duke of York, with 
the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, who had withdrawn 
into the North, determined to go up to the 
King with an armed force. They feared that if "^'°" ^^^''' 
they attended the council they would be entrapped : but 
if the King were in any real danger they professed them- 
selves ready to offer him their services. They wrote to 
Archbishop Bourchier to explain to Henry their motives 
for taking up arms, and they marched on till they came 
to St. Alban's. Here they were met by the King and 
Somerset ; and a sharp battle took place, in which So- 
merset and a number of other lords were slain^ and the 



158 Henry VI . ch. vn. 

King was wounded in the neck with an arrow. The 
May 22. Duke of York was master of the field ; but 

JfSt.^^"^^ he and the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick 
Alban's. came after the engagement and knelt before 

the King, beseeching his forgiveness and disowning all 
intention to do him injury. Henry forgave them willingly 
and went on with them to London, where they were re- 
ceived in triumph the following day. 

5. A Parliament was immediately afterwards sum- 
moned in which the acts of the Duke of York and his 
friends were declared to have been those of good and loyal 
subjects. It was prorogued till November. In the interval 
the King fell ill again, and when it reassembled York 
York again was again nominated as Protector. The Par- 
Protector, liament also determined that the Protectorship 
this time should not cease by the mere fact of the King 
being once more able to exercise his functions, but that 
whenever the King was so far recovered York should be 
discharged of his functions in full parliament. 

6. In February following he was so discharged. The 
King had regained his health, and was once more able to 
and again perform the duties of royalty. Apparently 
discharged York Still retained some influence in the con- 
A.D. 1456. duct of affairs, but the King now governed in 
Feb. 25. ]^jg Q^yj^ name. Things generally were in an 
uncertain state for about two years. The court seems to 
have moved about a good deal at a distance from London. 
The Queen kept at a distance from the King. The Scots 
attacked the borders and the French insulted the coast 
with impunity. At length it was felt desirable that there 
should be a reconciliation between York and his friends 
on the one side, and the Queen and her friends on the 

other. A great council was held in London 
February in February 1 45 8. York, Salisbury, and War- 
wick took up their quarters in the city ; but the Duke of 



1 



1459. 



Civil War, 159 



Somerset and other lords of the Queen's party were not 
admitted within it lest they should take occasion to 
revenge the death of their fathers and other relatives at 
St. Alban's. Conferences took place daily between the 
two parties in the suburbs, in the morning at the Black- 
friars and in the afternoon at the Whitefriars in Fleet 
Street. In the end terms of agreement were Recondiia- 
come to by which the Yorkists undertook to opposft^^^ 
bestow a certain sum in masses for the souls parties, 
of the lords slain at St. Alban's, and the other party to 
forego all claims and actions against their opponents 
arising out of that battle. 

7. A great procession was held in honour of the re- 
conciliation. The rival lords marched together to St. 
PauPs. The young Duke of Somerset went hand in hand 
with Salisbury ; the Duke of Exeter with the Earl of 
Warwick. The King then followed, wearing his crown 
upon his head. The Duke of York and the Queen walked 
after him, arm in arm. This goodwill and amity, how- 
ever, scarcely lasted a whole year. A quarrel between 
the servants of the King and the Earl of Warwick led to 
imputations against the earl's loyalty, and he retired to 
Calais, of which place he had been made lord deputy. 
The Queen then endeavoured to arrest his 

father the Earl of Salisbury, whom she com- 
missioned Lord Audley to intercept on a journey. But 
the earl, beins^ forewarned, had collected a ^ , ^ 

• -. 1 -> r 1 11 1 ^^\.t\^ of 

considerable force, and completely overthrew Bioreheath. 
Lord Audley at Bioreheath in Staffordshire on ^^^^' ^^ 
Sunday, September 23, 1459. 

8. It was now evident that the question must be foug?it 
out between the party of the Queen and that of the Duke 
of York. The duke mustered his forces in the marches 
of Wales, and was joined at Ludlow by the Earls of 
Salisbury and Warwick, the latter having come over from 



i6o Henry VI. 



CH. VII. 



Calais to give him aid. An army commanded by the 
King himself approached Ludlow. The confederate lords 
endeavoured to avoid a conflict by strong protestations 
of loyalty, declaring that they only remained under arms 
in self-defence. But the King issued proclamations of 
pardon to all who would desert their standard, and when 
the two armies lay opposite each other, one Andrew 
Trollope, who had come over from Calais with the Earl 
of Warwick, withdrew by night with a considerable body 
of men and went over to the King. His defection m^ade 
the Yorkists despair of further resistance. They fled and 
^. . left their banners on the held. The duke and 

Dispersion 

of the his second son, Edmund Earl of Rutland, es- 

Yorkists. ^^p^^ ^^, Wales into Ireland. His eldest, Ed- 
ward Earl of INIarch, along with the Earls of Warwick and 
Salisbury, passed into Devonshire, where they took ship 
and sailed, first to Guernsey and afterwards to Calais. 

9. In November a Parliament met at Coventry in 
which the Duke of York and all his party were attainted. 
They are ^^^ ^^^ duke was Safe in Ireland, and War- 
attainted, wick could not be dispossessed of Calais, where 
the soldiers were devoted to him. The latter had also 
the command of the King's fleet, having been in the 
preceding year entrusted with the keeping of the sea, in 
which he had distinguished himself by a splendid victory 
over a Spanish fleet. It was in vain that other persons 
were appointed to replace him in either of his two com- 
mands. The young Duke of Somerset, who was sent 
over as Captain of Calais was unable to take possession 
of his post. He was obliged to land at some little dis- 
tance from Calais, and the very sailors who had brought 
him over conveyed their ships afterwards into Calais 
haven and ofi*ered their services to the Earl of Warwick. 
Many friends at the same time came flocking over from 
England to join the Earls of March, Salisbury, and War- 



1460. Civil War, 16 r 

wick. Measures were concerted by these lords for the 
invasion of England, and the Earl of Warwick sailed 
to Ireland, where he arranged a plan of action in 
concert with the Duke of York, and returned to Calais. 



VIII. The Duke of Yor^s Claim — His Death — Henry 
Deposed, 

I. At length, in June 1460, the three earls crossed the 
Channel. There went over with them a papal legate 
named Coppini who had been sent to England a.d. 1460. 
in the preceding year and was returning from y^'^\^ 
a fruitless mission, when those lords persuaded Salisbury 
him to stay a while at Calais and use his in- tkk return 
fluence to promote peace between them and ^° England, 
the King. They landed at Sandwich, and were received 
with joy by a great multitude of people. Archbishop 
Bourchier met them and conducted them to London, 
The legate in their company displayed the standard of 
the Church. Their followers increased in numbers as 
they went along, and the city of London opened its gates 
to them. They published manifestoes declaring how 
they had been debarred from setting before the King 
himself matters of great importance to the kingdom, how 
the laws were ill administered and justice was perverted ; 
how the people were grievously taxed and the patrimony 
of the Crown was wasted by men who had too much 
influence over the King ; how the King's purveyors were 
driven to great extortion to supply the wants of the house- 
hold ; and how the King was forcing every township to 
raise men for him at its own cost. Moreover letters had 
been written by authority encouraging the French to 
attempt the siege of Calais, and the Irish chieftains to 
rise against the English. 

M 



1 62 Henry VI . ch. vii. 

2. The King collected his forces at Coventry and went 
on to Northampton, where he was met by the army of 
_ , , the confederate lords. In a brief but sharp 

Battle of , , - . . \ 

Northamp. engagement the royal forces were defeated 
ton, July lo. ^^^ ^j^g Y:\nz himself taken prisoner. He 
was conducted to London, and of course the government 
of the kingdom fell into the hands of the victors. New 
officers of state were appointed and a Parliament w^as 
summoned which met at Westminster in October. Here 
the attainders of the Duke of York and his party were 
reversed. But before it had sat many days the Duke of 
York himself came over from Ireland, and his appear- 
ance gave rise to proceedings of a kind altogether un- 
usual. 

3. He arrived in London with a retinue of 500 men, 
proceeded to Westminster, and took up quarters in the 
royal palace. On October 16 he entered the House of 
Lords, took his seat on the King's throne, and delivered 

to the chancellor a writing in which he claimed 
claims the the crown for himself by lineal descent from 
crown. Edward III., and maintained that Henry was 

not rightful king. He was, in fact, descended from 
Lionel Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of John of 
Gaunt, from whom Henry and the last two kings had 
derived their title. Many historians have been of opinion 
that he had been ambitious to vindicate this claim all 
along ; but it must be confessed that before this time he 
had always conducted him.self with remarkable modera- 
tion, and w^hen we consider the bad faith he had re- 
peatedly experienced from the opposite party, owing to' 
the weakness of the King and the overbearing character 
of his consort, we can quite well understand that he may 
have been led to advance his pretensions from other 
motives than mere ambition. At the same time, it 
naturally seemed to the peers an unprecedented thing to 



1460. The Duke of York's Claim, 163 

deprive a king like Henry of his crown after he and his 
family had worn it for three generations. The greater 
number of the lords stayed away from the House ; but 
the duke insisting on an answer, those present referred 
the matter to the King himself, desiring to know what he 
could allege in opposition to the duke's claim. The 
King consulted his judges and lawyers, but they declined 
to advise him in a matter of such grave responsibility ; 
so that finally it w^as referred again to the lords, w'ho 
gave it as their opinion that the duke's title could not be 
defeased. But as Henry VI. had -k^jeen actually crow^ned 
as king and they had all sw^orn Realty to him, it was 
suggested as a compromise and agreed to by both 
parties, that he should be allowed to retain his cro^vn for 
life, but that the duke and his heirs should succeed after 
Henry's death. This arrangement was embodied in an 
act of parliament which received the royal assent ; and 
Henr}^, wearing his crow^n upon his head, made a public 
procession to St. Paul's, accompanied by the duke as heir- 
apparent, to give it greater solemnity. 

4. Queen Margaret, however, w^as not so easily satis- 
fied with this tame surremer of the rights of her son. 
Since the battle of Northampton she hM retired into 
Wales, and afterw^ards into Scotland ; but a strong party 
in the north of England maintained her cause The 
Duke of York proceeded northwards, and towards the 
end of the year took up his quarters at S^dal Castle. 
From this position he allowed himself to Jbe lured to 
attack the Queen's adherents at Wakefield^ *^ 
where his army suffered a total defeat and he Wakefield, 
himself was slain in the field. The victors ^^^' 3°- 
were most merciless and insolent. It is tru^ there is 
some uncertainty about the stories which were/reported 
by wTiters of somewhat later date. Queen Margaret her- 
self is said to have been present at the battle ; and Lord 



1 64 Henry VI. ch. vn. 

Clifford, who, having lost his father at the battle of St. 
Alban's, nourished a deadly feeling of hatred and re- 
venge against the Duke of York, presented his slain 
enemy's head to Margaret with the words, ' Madam, 
)'Our war is done. Here is your king's ransom.' The 
same Clifford, after the battle, also put to death most 
cruelly the duke's second son, Edmund Earl of Rutland, 
a young man not quite eighteen years of age, whose fate 
excited great compassion, and whom later writers repre- 
sented to have been a mere boy. But from what the few 
really contemporar}' writers say in reference to this battle 
it may be doubted whether Margaret arrived upon the 
scene till after it was fought. There seems no question, 
however, that in this particular engagement there was 
manifested a spirit of ferocity and vindictiveness which 
had not been seen before, and which afterwards caused 
these wars to be looked back upon with feelings of 
peculiar pain and horror. The Duke of York's head, 
which Margaret caused to be crowned with a paper 
crown, was stuck upon the walls of York city. And the 
Earl of Salisbury, having been taken prisoner in the fight, 
was beheaded, and his head was placed there too. 

5. Edward Earl of March, the Duke of York's eldest 
son, had left London shortly before his father and gone 
into the borders of Wales. He was at Glou- 
cester when he received the news of his 
father's death. He immediately moved on to Shrews- 
bury. The men of the country flocked to him in num- 
bers, eager to offer their services against Queen Margaret. 
But hearing that Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, the 
half-brother of King Henry, was raising forces in Wales 
Battle of along with James Butler, Earl of Ormond, who 
Cross"^^'^^ brought some bands of Irishmen into the 
Feb. 2. field, he turned back and met them at Mor- 

timer^s Cross to the south of Wigmore, in Herefordshire, 



1 46 1. York's Death. 165 

where he thoroughly defeated them on Candlemas Day, 
1 46 1. It is said that on the morning of that day, just 
before the battle, he was struck by the appearance of the 
sun ; for it seemed as if three suns were seen together in 
the sky, and that they all at once merged into one, — an 
omen of approaching success by which he was greatly 
encouraged. The Earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire fled 
from the field ; but Sir Owen Tudor, Pembroke's father, 
was taken prisoner, and was beheaded at Hereford along 
with some others. 

6. This Sir Owen Tudor deserves notice here as 
being the ancestor of a line of kings and queens who 
afterwards sat upon the English throne. He sir Owen 
was a Welsh chieftain of handsome person Tudor. 
and great accomplishments, who boasted a pedigree from 
the ancient line of Cadwallader, the last king of the 
Britons. Perhaps the possession of such a lineage 
placed him, in his own eyes, on a level with kings and 
princes ; but whether it was due to this, or to his own 
personal merits, he succeeded in producing such an im- 
pression on the French princess, Catherine, widow of 
Henr>^ V., that she became his wife. By her he had, 
besides some other children, two sons, who being the 
halt-brothers of Henry VI. were afterwards raised to the 
peerage. Edmund, the eldest, was created Earl of Rich- 
mond, and became the father of King Henry VII. Jasper, 
the second, was made Earl of Pembroke ; and it is he 
who was, as we have seen, defeated by young Edward 
Earl of March at Mortimer's Cross. 

7. But although Edward had gained a signal victor}', 
Queen Margaret had profited by the resistance offered to 
him in Wales, and drew towards London with a host of 
northern men who devastated the country as they went 
along. The Earl of Warwick brought the King out of 
London and met her at St. Alban's, where, for a second 



1 66 Heniy VL 



CH. VII. 



time, ?. battle was fought in this civil war. On this occa- 
Second sion the Queen's party were victorious and the 

ilb^'f ^'* Yorkists were put to flight. The King, who had 
Feb. 17. been left behind, was again at liberty and was 

rejoined by his wife and son. He issued a proclamation 
against the Earl of March, who was now on his w^ay 
towards London ; but Edward, joining his forces with 
the remainder of Warwick^s army, marched on unopposed 
and was received with acclamations as he entered the 
city. For the citizens, who had always favoured his 
father, were now driven to take part with him all the 
more in consequence of what they heard of the depre- 
dations committed by Margaret's northern troops. 

8. Being therefore now lodged in the capital and 
assured of the friendship of the people, Edward sum- 
moned a council of lords, before whom he declared his 
right to the crown of England ; and it was determined 
to depose King Henry on the ground that he had broken 
the agreement made with the Duke of York in the last 
Parliament, and shown himself besides incompetent to 
rule. The lords accordingly named Edward king. 
That day, at a great meeting in St. John's Field, the 
The Earl people wcre asked if they would accept the 
declare? ^^^^ ^^ March as their sovereign. Cries of 
king. ' Yea, yea. King Edward I ' filled the air, 

with great shouts and clapping of hands. A deputation 
of lords and commons then waited upon him at Baynard's 
Castle, the mansion of his father in Thames Street, to 
notify to him his election as king. He accepted the 
dignity, proceeded in state to St. Paul's and afterwards 
to Westminster, and from that day began to rule. 




LonAon .LoTia-rr.aixs & Co. 

Explanati on 



Edvrf\\Vi:<-r 



. Irhdzcotes a. BattUFi^eld 
Avajchacl. to cl daX£, iruJicatjes that the pJjoj-e was taJcert socket, or ravaged at that dnte> 
IndJuoat&s oJi Eruxoripment 
A mere date, foUavring the. narrve of a place, mdicates a treaty or some. oiJi.er point of 
interest carmected -trttk the place which -wiR be faunJ recorded in. tjix JiJ^story 



1461. Henry Deposed. 167 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EDWARD IV. 

I. Triumph of the House of York, 

I. Edward was king; but Henry and Margaret had 
withdrawn into the North, and an army of 60,000 men 
under Somerset lay near York. Both Edward 
and his supporters prepared for a decisive 
struggle. The Duke of Norfolk went down into his own 
country to summon his retainers, the Earl of Warwick 
left London with a great body of men, and Edward him- 
self followed northwards a few days later. The more 
advanced divisions of their forces had reached Pomfret 
and had secured the passage of the river Aire at Ferry- 
bridge, when Lord Fitzwalter, who kept the bridge, was 
surprised and slain by Lord Clifford in the Battle of 
early morning. Lord Falconbridge, however, bridge 
came up immediately afterwards and defeated March 27, 
Clifford, who was also slain in the encounter. The 
united forces of Warwick and of Edward then pushed 
on in the direction of York, and between the villages of 
Towton and Saxton, about eight miles from the city, 
found the whole army of the enemy drawn up to give 
them battle. The conflict began about four o'clock in 
the afternoon, the day after the battle of Ferrybridge. 
The fighting was continued through the night, and 
renewed with vigour next morning about nine o'clock, 
notwithstanding a heavy snow shower which and Towton, 
blew in the faces of the Lancastrians. That March 29. 
day was Palm Sunday. The forces engaged on either 
side were enormous, and never was battle fought so obsti- 
nately. About mid-day the Duke of Norfolk came up 



i68 Edzvard IV. ch. vm. 

to the assistance of the Yorkists, with fresh forces that he 
had levied in Norfolk. Still the Lancastrians kept the 
field, fighting most obstinately till about three in the 
afternoon. But their ranks being broken they were at 
last compelled to give way, and were pursued in various 
directions, no quarter being granted by the conquerors. 
Some were drowned in attempting to cross rivers ; 
numbers were cut down in the pursuit, and the way was 
strewn with corpses for ten miles, up to the very gates of 
York. On the held itself, after the battle, the spectacle 
was most ghastly. The snow was crimsoned with the 
blood of the slain, and as it melted a crimson stream 
poured down every furrow. The dead were heaped up in 
trenches, and their numbers, counted by the heralds, were 
declared to amount to no less than eight-and-twenty 
thousand. 

2. King Henry and Margaret fled towards Scotland, 
w^hile Edward entered York in triumph. The power of 
Henry w^as completely crushed, and the first step he took 
to recover it w^as not much calculated to advance his 
object. Driven to seek refuge in Scotland he delivered 
up Berwick to the Scots and encouraged them to under- 
take the siege of Carlisle. But the latter place was 
Coronation relieved by Lord Montague, and Edward 
of Edward, having retumed to London was crowned on 
Sunday June 28. His two brothers, George and Richard, 
who had been sent abroad for security, returned and were 
created dukes, with the titles of Clarence and Gloucester. 
Parliament was then summoned to meet at Westminster 
in November, and an act was passed confirming Edward's 
claim to the crown by hereditary right, and declaring the 
three preceding kings to have been usurpers. All who 
had been active in the cause of the House of Lancaster 
w^ere attainted and their possessions forfeited. Henry 
himself and Queen Margaret were declared traitors. 



1463. Trmniph of the House of York, 169 

3. Still, the whole kingdom was not for some time 
absolutely in Edward^s power. There were castles in 
Wales which held out for Henry, and Margaret hoped, 
with the aid of the French and Scots, to make a successful 
invasion. She sailed from Kirkcudbright ^^ ^^52^ 
through the Irish Channel into Brittany, and, ^P^ii 3- 
repairing to the French Court, made a treaty with the 
new King of France, Louis XL, by which she engaged to 
surrender Calais as the price of his assistance. Louis 
lent her some money and a small force, with which she 
returned to Scotland, and made an attempt to invade 
England by sea. But a violent storm arose, some of the 
vessels were sunk and others driven to land on Holy 
Island off Northumberland, and Margaret herself only 
escaped in a small fishing-smack to Berwick. Shortly 
afterwards, however, she made another attempt by land, 
and, with the aid of the Borderers, entered Northumberland. 
Her efforts were at first crowned with success. Three 
strong castles, Bamborough, Dunstanborough, and Aln- 
wick fell into her hands. But before the end of the year 
two of them were recovered by the Earl of Warwick, 
while Edward himself was advancing northwards to drive 
out the invaders ; and on Twelfth Day, Aln- ^^ ^^g^ 
wick, the sole remaining fortress, capitulated January 6. 
to Lord Hastings. 

4. The cause of Lancaster was now desperate. The 
castle of Harlech in Wales alone held out for Henry, 
who appears at this time to have gone thither from 
Scotland. The Duke of Somerset made his peace with 
Edward, and was received into favour. Sir Ralph Percy 
too, on the surrender of Bamborough and Dunstanborough, 
had agreed to swear allegiance to Edward on condition 
that those castles should again be committed to his 
custody. As for Margaret, she appears to have met with 
many adventures, and to have narrowly escaped falling 



I/O Edward IV, ch. vm. 

into the hands of the EngHsh. At least there is an anec- 
dote related of her by an old French chronicler referring 
to this period, which we will here translate from the 
original. 

5. ' The Queen of England having lost herself one day 
in a forest in England, and her son along with her, they 
Adventure ^^^^ taken by thieves, who robbed them and 
of Queen Stripped them of all their valuables, and it 

argaret. ^lugt be supposed would have murdered them, 
but that they squabbled among themselves about the 
division of the jewels, till they came to blows. Then 
the Queen, seeing them fight, took up her son in her 
arms, and fled into the depth of the forest, where she 
was so overcome with fatigue that she could go no 
further. Here she found a brigand to whom she gave 
her son to carry, saying to him, " Here, my friend, save 
the son of your king ! " The brigand took him with very 
good will, and they departed, so that shortly after they 
came by sea to Sluys. And from Sluys she went to 
Bruges, her son still with her ; where she was received 
very honourably, while her husband. King Henry, was 
in Wales, in one of the strongest places in England.' 

6. In Flanders Margaret sought the aid of Philip 
Duke of Burgundy, but he refused to take her part against 
Edward. He, however, relieved her necessities, and she 
She retires retired to the duchy of Bar in Lorraine which 
to Lorraine, belonged to her father, where she remained 
for some time, watching the course of events. 

7. The triumph of Edward, meanwhile, was not un- 
disturbed. The Scots invaded England again, and retook 
the castle of Bamborough. Men to whom much had 
been entrusted proved unworthy of the confidence reposed 
in them. Sir Ralph Percy, notwithstanding his late oath 
of fealty to King Edward, turned traitor once more, and 
in concert with a certain Sir Ralph Gray, who was dis- 



1464. Trmvipli of the House of York, lyi 

appointed of being made governor of Alnwick Castle, 
surprised that fortress and delivered the governor, Sir 
John Astley, into the hands of the French. A little later 
the Duke of Somerset also declared again for Henry, and 
passed from Wales into Northumberland to join with 
Percy ; while King Henry once more reappeared upon 
the Borders with a body of Scots and refugees. 
But the Earl of Warwick's brother, John Nevill, ' * ^"^ '^' 
Lord Montague, whom Edward had appointed lieutenant 
of the North, first defeated and killed Percy Battles of 
in battle at Hedgeley Moor some miles south J[Joof ^^^^ 
of Wooler, and next overthrew the forces of April 25, 
Henry and the Duke of Somerset at Hexham, ham, 
King Henry himself fled away and lived in ^^^^ ^• 
concealment for more than a year afterwards. But 
Somerset was taken, and in consideration of his treason 
was beheaded after the battle ; and several other of the 
leaders of this movement were executed in the same 
manner shortly afterwards at Newcastle and at York. 

IL Edward^ s Marriage— Louis XL 

I. So this last effort of the Lancastrians was crushed 
before Edward himself appeared in arms to oppose it. 
Edward actually, however, did leave London before 
the end of April, and his journey northward led to 
most important consequences of another kind ; but the 
victory had already been gained for him in his absence, 
long before he could reach Northumberland. Nor does 
it appear in fact that he was aware that there was any 
serious rebellion to put down. By April 30 he had 
reached Stony Stratford, we know not with what amount 
of retinue ; but so little was his mind occupied with 
military matters, that he stole off early on the following 
morning to pay a secret visit to Grafton, the residence of the 



1/2 Edward IV, ch. vm. 

old Duchess of Bedford, widow of that nobleman who had 
been Regent of France during the minority of Henry VI. 
This duchess since her husband's death had been married 
to Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, and she had a grown- 
up daughter, Elizabeth, who had been married to a certain 
Sir John Grey, but lost her husband at the second battle 
of St. Alban's, where he had fought on the side of King 
Henry. Edward was greatly fascinated by the charms of 
this widow ; and though he spent on this occasion a very 
brief time in her company and returned in a few hours to 
Edward's Stony Stratford, he was, at his return, a married 
marriage, man. The marriage ceremony had been per- 
^^ ^' formed in secret at Grafton, but he did not 

dare avow the fact for some months afterwards. 

2. He was at this time but two-and-twenty years of 
age, but he had already been often urged to marry. An 
alliance with the royal family of France or Spain it was 
thought would do much to secure his throne ; but Edward 
cared far less for such considerations than for the 
gratification of his own pleasure, which indeed was not 
always so innocent as on this occasion. Good fortune, 
far beyond his own m.erits, had hitherto attended his 
course, and leaving the cares of state to others he had 
given himself up to the vices of a libertine. His marriage, 
too, was an act of blind imprudence. From the manner 
in which it was contracted it disappointed the Earl of 
Warwick and others who had expected him to be guided 
by their counsels ; while, on the other hand, the com- 
paratively humble rank of the lady excited the jealousy of 
many powerful families. 

3. But at Michaelmas following Edward publicly ac- 
knowledged her as his queen, and next year she was 
crowned with great solemnity. Riches and honours were 
showered upon her relations. Her father, from being a 
simple baron, was created Earl Rivers. Her brother 



1464. Edward's Marriage. 173 

Anthony had already married a wealthy heiress and 
received the title of Lord Scales, but another brother, five 
sisters, and her son by her first husband, Thomas Grey, 
were also married to leading members of the nobihty. 
These promotions were looked upon with anything but 
satisfaction by many who had entertained hopes of secur- 
ing for their own families the heirs or heiresses mono- 
polised by the Woodvilles. Offices of state, too, were 
taken from old friends of the House of York and conferred 
upon the Queen's relations. Lord Mountjoy was dis- 
charged of the office of lord treasurer to make room for 
her father Rivers, who on the resignation of the Earl of 
Worcester was also created lord high constable. 

4. With these changes came also a change of policy. 
Of all Edward's councillors the most powerful was Richard 
Earl of Warw^ick, the owner of immense pos- -phe Earl of 
sessions and the governor of the important Warwick, 
dependency of Calais. It was owing to Warwick more 
than to any other man that Edward had been seated on the 
throne. No other nobleman in England could call into 
the field such an army of feudal vassals and retainers. 
No other nobleman kept such an enormous household. 
WTien he came to London, the carcasses of six oxen were 
consumed at a breakfast at Warwick's Inn in Holborn. 
His wealth, his powder, his experience, and the distinguished 
services he had done for Edward's house gave him a right 
to direct the young King's counsels to w^hich no one else 
could naturally pretend. ^Moreover his brother Lord 
Montague had won for Edward the victor}^ over Henr}' VI. 
at Hexham, for which the King had worthily promoted 
him to the dignity of Earl of Northumberland, with a 
grant of all the forfeited lands of the Percies. Also his 
youngest brother George, whom the King had promoted 
from the bishopric of Exeter to the archbishopric of 
York, was Edward's chancellor. 



174 Edward IV, ch. vm. 

5. But with the marriage of the King Wanvick and 
the Nevills must have kno\vn that their influence over 
him was certain to dechne. The act itself, indeed, was 
something hke a forcible breaking away from their rule ; 
Intended ^^"^ Warvvick had already set on foot negotia- 
marriage of tions for marry^ing the King to Bona of Savoy, 
Bona of* who was sistcr to the queen of Louis XL of 
Savoy. France. It is not true, as stated by some old 
historians, that War\vick was at the time absent at the 
French Court for the express purpose of concluding this 
match ; but there is quite distinct evidence that he had 
promoted it. Warwick's policy evidently was to strengthen 
the new dynasty upon the throne by a strict and cordial 
alliance with the French king. But Edward and his 
new advisers had quite different ideas. To them the 
friendship or enmity of France was a matter of compara- 
tive indifference ; and they turned their eyes in preference 
to France's powerful vassal the Duke of Burgundy. The 
French monarchy was not yet so strong that England 
need have any great cause to fear it as a rival, while the 
Court of Burgundy was the most magnificent in Europe. 
Besides, the traditional policy of England was to humble 
France as much as possible, and Edward was quite dis- 
posed to follow it out if once his own dominions were at 
peace under his rule. 

6. It may be questioned, indeed, whether an alliance 

with France would have been really so beneficial to him 

as Warwick supposed. The King of France, Louis XL, 

was the most subtle and astute politician of his time. He 

had ascended the throne in the same year as Edward, 

and the state of his kingdom hitherto had made it a far 

greater object with him to have peace with England 

than it was even for Edward to be undisturbed by foreign 

invasion while puttinsf down Lancastrian in- 
A.D. 1465. ^ ^ 

surrections. In the verv vear after Edward's 



1465. Louis XL 175 

marriage the throne of Louis was exposed to extreme 
and unprecedented danger. A league was formed 
against him by the great vassals of the French League of 
Crown, the Duke of Burgundy and his son the WeaHn^'"' 
Count of Charolois, the Dukes of Britanny France. 
and Bourbon, and some others, with the view of securing 
their independence by united action. They called it the 
League of the Public Weal, and they won over the King's 
own brother, the Duke of Berry, to take part in it. This 
formidable confederacy engaged the forces of Louis in a 
pitched battle at Montlhery, a few miles south 
of Paris. The field was most obstinately con- -^^^^ ^ • 
tested on both sides, and when night fell the issue was 
still undecided. But Louis withdrew his forces in the 
night time, and bent ever\^ effort to fortify Paris itself, 
which he succeeded in making so strong that the allies 
could not effectually besiege it. After a few months the 
war was terminated by the treaty of Conflans, 
in which Louis was obliged to make consider- ^ ° ^ ^' 
able concessions ; but, profiting afterwards by the dissen- 
sions which sprang up among the confederates, he very 
soon recovered his lost ground and became much stronger 
than he had been before. 

7. This struggle between Louis and his powerful 
vassals was essentially the great struggle that occupied 
him through his whole reign. It vras his part PoUcy of 
to recover and reanimate the depressed and Louis xi. 
all but extinguished monarchy of France, to vindicate 
the independence of her Crown and put an end to do- 
mestic feuds. As regards foreign princes his only anxiety 
was that they should leave him at peace to work out this 
great home problem undisturbed ; and perhaps the ver\^ 
insignificance to which French royalty had been reduced 
in some degree favoured his design. For Louis was a 
king that scorned appearances, and could well be content 



ij6 Edward IV. ch. viir. 

to secure the reality of power without its semblance. Never 
perhaps was there a king in Europe whose manners were 
less kingly. His way of life was not merely unostenta- 
tious but parsimonious. He avoided show as much as 
possible. In appearance he was not imposing, in dress he 
was peculiarly slovenly, and he utterly despised the pomp 
of state. He treated in the most familiar manner men 
of the lowest birth, made his barber his chief councillor, 
and walked about in the company of hangmen. This 
familiarity with men of low rank in itself did much to 
alienate the nobles, but on the other hand it identified the 
interests of the people with those of a king who was always 
affable, always accessible, who took men for what they 
were really worth, and not for what they were made by 
birth and station. 



HI. The Burgundian A lliance — Warwick^ s Intrigues, 

I. Still, England was at peace with France, and there 
might be hopes of a cordial amity. Nor had any open 
dissensions broken out among the English nobles at home. 
Edward summoned both the Nevills and the Woodvilles 
to his counsels, and they came. Questions regarding 
foreign alliances were freely discussed by both parties. 
A match was proposed between the King's sister Margaret 
Alliance and Charles Count of Charolois, son and heir 

guildy pro- ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Burgundy. Warwick, on the 
posed. Other hand, advocated a lasting peace with 

France, and the King so far yielded to his remonstrances 

A.D. 1467. ^s t^ s^^^ ^^"^ ^^^^ ^^ \x^2X with Louis 
May. upon the subject. Louis received him at 

Rouen with peculiar honour, and had a number of private 
interviews with him which were after w^ards made grounds 
of suspicion against his loyalty. On his return he brought 



1467. TJie Bicrgicndian Alliance, I'j'j 

with him ambassadors from France who were instructed 
to do all in their power to hinder the alliance between 
England and Burgundy. Louis was willing to pay the 
King of England a pension^ and refer his claims to 
Normandy and Aquitaine to the decision of the Pope. 
But Edward received these proposals with disdain, and 
treated the envoys with very little courtesy. On the other 
hand the ambassadors of the Duke of Burgundy were 
received with special favour. Feasts and banquetings 
and disguisings were given in their honour. There was 
also a great' display of chivalry in Smithfield. The 
Queen's brother, Anthony Lord Scales, had two years 
before sent a friendly challenge or invitation to the Count 
de la Roche, commonly called the Bastard of Burgundy, 
one of the most noted warriors of the time, to come to 
England and perform some feats of arms along with him. 
The offer was readily accepted, and though various im- 
pediments seem to have delayed its fulfilment, the Bastard 
had at length come to England with a train of Burguhdian 
gentlemen, who gave similar challenges to the gentlemen 
of England. For several days in succession there were 
jousts between the Englishmen and Burgundians, and 
the success of the whole display was only marred by an 
accident at the first feat of arms between Lord Scales 
and his opponent, when the latter was thrown backwards 
off his horse, the rider, who was shortsighted, having 
made the animal strike its head against an iron spike 
projecting from Lord Scales's saddle-bow. 

2. Just after this Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, 
died, and his son Charles, the intended husband of 
Edward's sister, became duke in his place. The marriage 
took effect in the year following, and England Marriage of 
and Burgundy were knit together in a firm sl^^g^Mar- 
alliance, greatly to the satisfaction of the King ^aret with 
and of the people generally, especially of the Burgundy. 

N 



•178 Edzvard IV, ch. viii. 

London merchants who traded with the Duke's subjects 
in Flanders, but not at all to the satisfaction of the Earl 
of Warwick, who hated the duke extremely. He, how- 
ever, disguised his feelings and accompanied Margaret 
to the seaside on her way to Flanders. But from this 
time, if not before, he continually plotted the humilia- 
tion of Edward, whom he himself had been the means of 
placing on the throne. The King had as yet no male 
children, and although he had two daughters, who by 
the modern rule of descent should have succeeded 
him before his brothers, the Duke of Clarence seems 
to have anticipated that he had some chance of the crown. 
Warwick encouraged this hope, and gave him his own 

daughter Isabel in marriage, hoping that by 
A.D. 14 9. ^^ doing he himself might recover that influ- 
ence in the affairs of England which he had lost by the 
marriage of Edward. The wedding took place at Calais, 
where Warwick was governor, without the King^s know- 
ledge and against his will. But the King's attention was 
at that very time engaged by an insurrection in Yorkshire 
which had been carefully arranged by Warwick before- 
Robin of hand. It was led by one who called himself 
i^surre^c^-^^'^ Robin of Rcdesdalc, whose real name was Sir 
tion. William Conyers. INIanifestoes were published 

by the insurgents showing why they had taken up arms 
and complaining of the influence of Lord Rivers and the 
Queen's friends. The King proceeded northwards to meet 
them, but ordered also Lord Herbert, whom he had created 
Earl of Pembroke, to bring up forces from Wales, and sent 

a message to his brother and the Earl of 
A.D. 14 9- Wanvick to induce them to come to him peace- 
ably. But the insurgents came upon the Earl of Pembroke 
and his Welsh levies near Banbury, at a place called 

Edgecote, and gained a complete victory, taking 
^^ ^' prisoners the earl and his brother. Sir Richard 



1469. Warzuick's Litrigucs, 179 

Herbert, whom they aftervvards beheaded. Clarence and 
the Earl of War^vick came over from Calais, along with 
the Archbishop of York, who was Warwick's brother and 
had once been Edward's chancellor. But their coming was 
not to assist the King. On the contrary they took him 
prisoner near Coventry, and led him first to Warwick 
Castle and aftenvards into Yorkshire. The insurgents at 
the same time took the Earl Rivers and his son Sir John 
Woodville prisoners, and put them to death at Coventry. 
3. Thus the government was for a time completely in 
Wanvick's hands, the King being his prisoner, and the 
power of the Woodvilles altogether broken. But pre- 
sently Edward made his escape, or perhaps was suffered 
to regain his freedom, and a general pardon v»-as after- 
wards proclaimed to all who had taken part in these 
commotions. This, however, did not prevent ^ ^ 
a renewal of disturbances early in the follow- insurrection 
ing year, when Sir Robert Welles, the eldest Robert 
son of Lord Welles, raising the cry of ^ King "^^^^l^s. 
Henry ! ' gathered to his standard a great number of the 
commons of Lincolnshire, where he attacked the house of 
Sir Thomas a Borough, a knight of the royal household, 
and razed it to the ground. With Sir Robert Welles 
was associated Sir Thomas Dymock, the King's champion, 
who was his uncle by marriage. When the nevrs of this 
insurrection reached the King he was provoked and 
alarmed in a way he had not been before. He was now 
convinced that a secret confederacy had been fonned 
against him which any further acts of clemency would 
only serve to encourage, and he summoned Lord Welles, 
the father of Sir Robert, and Sir Thomas Dymock, to 
repair to him immediately. Hearing that the King's 
suspicions were fully roused they came up to London, and 
at first entered the Sanctuary at Westminster, but being 
assured of pardon, Lord Welles came to the King and 



1 80 Edzvard I V, ch. viii. 

wrote a letter to his son desiring him to desist from 
his enterprise. His son, however, did not obey, and 
Edward, enraged at his obstinacy, violated the promise of 
security he had given to the father, and ordered both Lord 
Welles and Sir Thomas Dymock to be beheaded. 

4. It was only meeting perfidy by perfidy. As might 
be expected, the King's enemies were confounded. Sir 
Robert Welles and his confederates were desperate. He 
had been promised assistance from the Earl of Warwick 
and the Duke of Clarence ; but the King had gone north- 
w^ards with his army as far as the confines of Lincoln- 
shire, and no succours were at hand. Sir Robert en- 
gaged the royal forces in the neighbourhood of Stamford ; 
but when the King's artillery opened fire the greater part 
A D 1470 °^ ^^^^ insurgents flung away their coats and 
March. took to flis^lit, Icavinsf their leader a prisoner 

Battle of . .1 1 -, r T,- • ^u 

Lose-coat m the hands of his enemies. The manner m 
iieid. which the rebels were dispersed caused the 

action to be spoken of as the battle of Lose-coat Field. 
The defeated knew that they had no mercy to expect, and 
fled, some of them as far as Scarborough, where several 
were beheaded. Sir Robert Welles was beheaded the 
day after the battle. Before his death he made a full 
confession as to the plan and motives of the insurrection, 
by which it appeared beyond all doubt that the intention 
was to have deposed King Edward and made the Duke 
of Clarence king. 

5. But the rebellion was now paralysed. The Duke of 
Clarence and the Earl of Warwick fled into Lancashire, 
from whence they passed by sea to Southampton, 
hoping there to have secured a large ship called the 
^Trinity,' belonging to the Earl of Warwick. In this 
attempt, however, they were defeated by the Queen's 
brother. Lord Scales, who by the death'^of his father had 
now become Earl Rivers ; for Edward had given him the 



1470. Warwick's Intrigues, 1 8 1 

command of some ships at Southampton and he cap- 
tured several vessels of Warwick's little fleet. Warwick 
and the Duke of Clarence escaped across the sea, while 
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, was commissioned to try 
the prisoners taken in their ships. The result was that 
twenty persons were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and 
their heads cut off. To exhibit their quarters to public 
view in some conspicuous position was only one of the 
commonplace barbarities of the age in the punishment 
of treason. But by Worcester's orders a new horror was 
given to this practice. The head and members of each 
of the unfortunate men were impaled on a stake in a 
manner peculiarly hideous and unaccustomed. Civil war, 
conspiracy, and rebellion had not only hardened the hearts 
of men on both sides, but had brutalised the most refined. 
The Earl of Worcester was one of the most accomplished 
scholars of the time ; but he was remembered after this 
as ^ the butcher of England.' 

IV. Edward drive ?i 02 U, a? id Henry VI. restored. 

I. As for the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of 
Clarence, they naturally sought to take refuge in Calais, 
where the earl was governor. But Lord Wenlock, who 
had been recently appointed his lieutenant, opposed their 
landing and turned the guns of the fortress against them. 
The Duchess of Clarence, vvho accompanied her husband, 
gave birth to a son on board ship while they were lying 
at anchor before the town, and with great difficulty Lord 
Wenlock was induced to send her two flagons of wine 
for her comfort ; but on no account would he suffer them 
to approach the harbour. So that in the end the duke 
and earl were obliged to turn aside and seek in the French 
king's dominions an asylum that was denied them every- 
where else. 



1 82 Edward IV, ch. vm. 

2. Louis XL, v/e may be sure, was not sorry to have 
an opportunity of giving protection and comfort to Ed- 
ward's enemies. Margaret of Anjou was at that very 
time hving in his dominions ; and if by any means her 
cause and that of the two Enghsh noblemen could be 
made the same, Edward would certainly have occasion 
to repent his want of cordiality tOAvards the French king. 
But what chance could there be of an alliance between 
those who had been such bitter enemies ? The Earl of 
Warwick had been the principal cause of the deposition 
and captivity of King Henry ; and even if INIargaret 
could mitigate her resentment on this ^account, she held 
it very questionable policy to forgive so notorious an 
offender. But Warwick was now most anxious to be 
Louis pro- reconciled to her ; he had offended King 
motes a re- Edward bcvond hope of pardon, and unless 

conciliation -' , . . 

between he could obtain the friendship of Margaret 

AnlcHTand^ ^^ "^^'^.s undone for ever. The French king 
w^arwick. offered himself a willing mediator, and through 
his intercession a reconciliation was at last accomplished. 
It was agreed that the Earl of Warwick should lead an 
expedition into England to recover the throne for King 
Henry, and that if it proved successful, Warwick's second 
daughter Anne was to be married to Henry's son, the 
Prince of Wales. The King of France, for his part^ 
engaged to lend every assistance to the attempt, and he 
accordingly furnished a fleet to protect the earl in cross- 
ing against the Duke of Burgundy. 

3. The earl and his company accordingly sailed from 
Harfleur and landed safely in the west of England, 

The Duke of Clarence came along with him ; 

and the whole expedition disembarked in the 
ports of Plymouth and Dartmouth. King Edward seems 
to have been lulled into a sense of false security which is 
altogether inexplicable. He had already had sufficient 



1470. 



Edzvard driven oitt, 183 



experience of the turbulent character of Warwick and the 
inconstancy of his brother Clarence. Yet he Warwick 
actually allowed himself to be taken by sur- and 
prise, believing himself secure in the aflections invade 
of his people generally, and paid no atten- England, 
tion to the w^arnings of his brother-in-law the Duke of 
Burgundy, who, from dread and dislike of Warwick even 
more than from love of Edward, endeavoured by repeated 
messages to put him on his guard. He was even indis- 
creet enough, at a time when the landing of Clarence and 
Warwick was very generally expected, to entrust the 
command of forces for the protection of the kingdom to 
the Marquis of Montague, Warwick's brother, who, be- 
sides his relationship to the principal leader of the in- 
vasion, had a secret grudge of his own against Edward, 
to induce him to turn traitor. For this marquis, formerly 
simple Lord Montague, had been, as we have already 
mentioned, created by Edward Earl of Northumberland 
in reward for the victor^' of Hexham ; but the King, find- 
ing that the people in the North were much devoted to 
Henry Percy, son of that Earl of Northumberland who 
was slain at Towton, was induced to reverse the attainder 
and restore him to his fathers dignity. ^Montague was 
accordingly prevailed on to surrender the earldom and to 
accept the higher rank of marquis for his compliance. 
But this was a mere empty honour, not accompanied by 
a suitable provision in lands to maintain the increased 
dignity ; so he openly told the men whom he had as- 
sembled in King Edward^s name that the King had given 
him but ' a pie's nest ' to support his state, and that he 
would therefore take the part of his brother the Earl of 
Warwick in opposition to King Edward. 

4. Before the landing of Clarence and the Earl of 
W^arwick, Edward had been drawn into the north to put 
down some commotions raised by Warwick's brother-in- 



184 Edward IV. ch. vm. 

law Lord Fitzhugh, who on his approach fled into Scot- 
land. He had gone as far as York, where, finding it 
needless to pursue the enemy, he rested for a while, when 
he received the news of the invasion. Even then he 
would not at first believe his danger, and wrote to the 
Duke of Burgundy to have his fleet ready to prevent 
their escape by sea, for on land he knew how to deal with 
them. But shortly afterwards he learned to his dismay 
that Montague's soldiers were crying ^ God bless King 
Henry ! ' Very few men gathered about his standard in 
Yorkshire, and he was warned that there was now little 
Edward Security for him except in flight. Accompanied 

takes flight }^y 3^ Small body of men he rode through the 
night to Lynn. He had a few ships riding at anchor in 
the Wash not far off, but one lay in the harbour. Avail- 
ing himself of this and two Dutch merchant ships he 
r. ^ embarked with his brother the Duke of Glou- 

(Jct. 3. 

J cester, his brother-in-law Rivers, his chamber- 

and em- ' ^ ^ 

barks for lain Lord Hastings, and about 800 followers. 
The little company were without clothes ex- 
cept what they had upon their backs ; but no time was 
to be lost and they set sail for Holland. Edward landed 
at Alkmaar and proceeded to the Hague, where he threw 
himself upon the protection of the Duke of Burgundy. 

5. The Earl of Warwick was now master of the king- 
dom. King Henry was released from the Tower, and 
was once more recognised as king. The Earl of Wor- 
cester, whose hideous executions at Southampton were 
fresh in people's memory, was arraigned of treason at 
Whitehall, condemned, and executed upon Tower Hill. 
Parliament was then assembled to ratify the arrange- 
ments that had been made in France. An act was passed 
entailing the crown on the male issue of King Henry, 
and in default of such issue on the Duke of Clarence and 
the heirs of his body. The duke and W^arwick were 



I47I. 



Henry VL restored. 185 



appointed protectors of the kingdom during the minority 
of Edward Prince of Wales. The former was recognised 
as heir to his father the late Duke of York ; while the 
latter was appointed to a number of high offices of state, 
some of which he had held before. 

V. FMitrn of King Edivard, 

I. But in less than six months after being driven from 
his kingdom Edward was enabled to return to it by the 
private assistance of his brother-in-law the a.d. 1471. 
Duke of Burgundy. He embarked at Flush- ^^arch 14. 
ing on March 2, and landed on the 14th at Ravenspur, 
where Henr}- IV. had disembarked when he came to 
dethrone King Richard. His circumstances in other re- 
spects were so similar to those of Henr\', that he adopted 
precisely the same line of policy. To induce the people 
of Yorkshire to withdraw their opposition to him, he pro- 
fessed that he came only to seek his rightful inheritance, 
the dukedom of York. He disclaimed any intention of 
removing King Henry, and being admitted into the city 
of York he solemnly abjured all pretensions to the crown. 
But as he passed southwards numbers came to his 
standard, and in direct violation of his oath he issued 
proclamations as king. Xo attempt was made to resist 
his progress before he reached the capital. He was 
joined near Coventry by his brother Clarence, who for a 
long time had been secretly anxious for a reconciliation, 
or at least had expressed to secret agents his willingness 
to abandon Warwick's party on a favourable opportunity. 
Edward advanced to London, and was readily admitted 
by the citizens, many of w-hom were his creditors. He 
then went out to meet his opponents, W^anvick and 
[Montague, at Barnet, carr\ing with him the unhappy 
King, Henr}' VI., once more a captive in his hands. 



1 86 Edzvard IV, ch. vm. 

2. Edward occupied the town of Barnet on the even- 
ing of April 13. The enemy were encamped to the 

north. DurincT the nic^ht Edward drew up- 

A.D. I47I. ^ . r ' ? • T • 

his forces opposite to them, intending to give 

them battle at daybreak. That morning was Easter 

^ , , Sunday. About 4 o'clock the (iay began to 
Battle of , •; _ , , -.11 

Barnet, clawn, but the whole scene was obscured by 

April 14. ^ dense fog, which prevented Edward from 
discovering that he had mistaken during the darkness 
the precise position of the enemy. At 5 o'clock, how- 
ever, the fighting commenced. Edward's forces on the 
left were very much outflanked by those of the Earl of 
Warwick, and after some time began to give way. A 
number of Edw^ard's men fled the field and spread news 
in Barnet and on the road to London that the day was 
lost. The EaiTs right wing closed upon the retreating 
combatants and came opposite their own left wing com- 
manded by the Earl of Oxford. But owing to the fog 
that still prevailed they did not know their own men, and 
Oxford's badge, a star with streams, was mistaken for the 
* sun of York.^ Warwick's men accordingly shot at Ox- 
ford's, and the latter cried out ^ Treason ! ' and fled. At 
length after six hours' fighting the Earl of Warwick and 
his brother Montague w^re slain, and King Edward's 
party were triumphant. But the slaughter on both sides 
was very heavy ; for the action being a critical one for 
King Edward, he forbore to order his soldiers to spare 
the common people in the ranks of his antagonists, which 
had been his usual practice in these wars. 

3. The Earl of Warwick is known in history by the 
name of Warwick ' the King-maker.' The title is truly 
significant of his power, which had been twice most 
signally shown in the setting up of one king and the 
deposition of another. He was the last great feudal 
nobleman who ever made himself dangerous to a reigning 
king. His policy throughout appears to have been 



I47I- Return of King Edward. 187 

selfish and treacherous, and his removal was an un- 
questionable blessing to his country. 

4. Edward now entered London in triumph, and sent 
back King Henry a prisoner to the Tower. But he was 
immediately compelled to leave the city in order ^ . 

_ - ^^ Alargaret 

to meet a new enemy. For Queen Jvlargaret, lands in 
who had not yet come over from France to "2^^^^. 
join her husband in his prosperity, at length landed with 
a body of Frenchmen at Weymouth on the very day her 
great ally was defeated and slain at Barnet. Next day 
she proceeded to Cerne Abbey, where she v/as visited by 
the Duke of Somerset and other lords of her party, who 
assured her that, notwithstanding the reverse sustained 
by their side, she w^ould still be able to raise a power, 
especially in the western counties v.here she had landed. 
By their advice she accordingly proceeded, with her son 
the prince, to Exeter. The people of Cornwall and 
Devon rose to do her service, and in a very few days she 
again moved eastward by Glastonbury to Bath. Here 
learning that Edward was approaching with his army, 
she turned aside to Bristol, and afterwards bent her 
course northvrard by Gloucester, where the gates v/ere 
shut against her, and after a fatiguing day^s march of 
thirty-six miles, arrived at Tewkesbury. That same 
evening King Edward passed Cheltenham and lodged 
within three miles of them. Next morning, 
May 4, he gave them battle. 

5. In- this action the Lancastrians were utterly de- 
feated. Queen Margaret was taken prisoner. Her son Ed- 
ward by some accounts was slain on the field ; -o , ^ 

T -. -. 1 1 r Battle of 

accordmg to otners he was murdered after Tewkes- 
the battle in the presence of King Edward "^' 
himself. The tradition in a later age was that he was 
murdered by Richard Duke of Gloucester ; but the fact 
may be that when Richard in after years horrified the 



1 88 Edwa7'd IV. ch. viir. 

world by a crime still more revolting, a number of earlier 
deeds of violence were attributed to him of which he was 
really guiltless. Richard, although he had led the van 
of Edward's army at Barnet, was at this time only in his 
nineteenth year ; and though doubtless he was receiving 
an education in ferocity from the unnatural character of 
the wars in which he was engaged, it may perhaps be 
questioned whether the writers of the next age were right 
in thinking he had begun his career of violence so early. 
King Edward's own conduct at this time was cruel and 
unscrupulous enough. He himself, sword in hand, pur- 
sued a number of the defeated party into the abbey 
church of Tewkesbury. A priest, bearing the host in his 
hand, came out to meet him at the door, and obtained 
from him a promise that he would spare the lives of the 
Duke of Somerset and fourteen other persons who had 
sought refuge there. But in violation of this pledge they 
Avere all beheaded two days later. 

6. The utmost that can be said to extenuate Edward's 
perfidy on this and other occasions* is that he had re- 
course to it at the most critical period in his fortunes, 
Avhen beset with difficulties at every turn. His natural 
disposition does not appear to have been cruel ; but at 
Barnet he gave no quarter, feeling that all was lost for 
him if he did not deal that day a decisive blow against 
the enemy. He was victorious, yet he was immediately 
called to contend with a new enemy in the west ; and 
now while he was away in Gloucestershire one of 
^, ^ ^ War\vick's sea-captains named the Bastard 

The Bastard _ , -, . , , -, i . t^ t i 

Falcon- Falconbndge landed m Kent to make another 

makes an diversion in favour of King Henry. In Kent 
attempt in i^e procurcd a certain number of followers, 
fevour. and coming up to London endeavoured to 

A.D. 1471. force an entrance into the city with the view 
of liberating Henry from the Tower. But having set 



I47I. Return of Ki7ig Edward. 189 

Aldgate and London Bridge on tire he exasperated the 
citizens, so that they made a more resolute resistance 
than they vvould otherwise have done, and he found it 
necessary to give up the attempt. 

7. King Edward returned with his army to London 
on May 21. He was received in triumph by the mayor 
and citizens, who went out to meet him be- 
tween Shoreditch and Ishngton ; and on the 
highway before he entered the city he made knights of 
a number of the aldermen. Three days later he marched 
into Kent in pursuit of the Bastard Falconbridge. But 
during his brief stay in London an event occurred which 
throws the deepest shadow of suspicion upon Edward^s 
conduct. On the very nis^ht of his arrival ^ 

T , . % . . . , . 1 Suspicious 

Kmg Henry died m his prison withm the death of 
Tower. His body was exhibited at St. Paul's ^^""^ ^^• 
the following day, and it was given out that his death 
had been owing to ^pure displeasure and melancholy.' 
But the coincidence of the event with Edw^ard's arrival in 
the capital, and the too obvious advantage to the King ot 
getting rid of a rival whose adherents gave him so much 
trouble, convinced the world at large that this was only a 
pretence. Henry had now no son to avenge his death or 
to claim succession to his kingdom ; and from what we 
have already seen of Edward there is very little reason 
to doubt that he caused tne poor feeble monarch to be 
secretly assassinated. The suspicion, indeed, is hinted 
even by a writer friendly to the King, who wrote within 
the security of a monastery. From this time, at all 
events, Edward was no longer troubled with rebellions in 
favour of the House of Lancaster. 

8. The sudden and extraordinary changes chang-es of 
of fortune experienced by the two rival kings fortune 
during those unhappy commotions were shared Wars^f 
by their adherents among the nobility, some ^^^ Roses. 



1 90 Edward IV, ch. vm. 

of whom during the adverse circumstances of their party 
suffered the most severe distress and poverty. Henry 
Holland, Duke of Exeter, who, though he had married a 
sister of Edward IV., took part with the House of Lan- 
caster, v/as seen at one time in the Low Countries bare- 
footed and bare-legged, begging his bread from door to 
door, till he was recognised and pensioned by the Duke 
of Burgundy. Queen Elizabeth Woodville, when her 
husband was driven into exile, was obliged to take refuge 
in the Sanctuary at Westminster, where she gave birth to 
her eldest son, afterwards Edward V. As for IMargaret 
of Anjou, she remained a prisoner in England after the 
battle of Tewkesbury until, on Edward making peace 
with France in 1475, she was ransomed by Louis XL 
and returned to her own country. 

VI. War ivith France, 

I. Civil dissensions being now appeased, Edward was 
easily induced to combine with Charles of Burgundy 
against Louis. The proposal to make war on France met 
with general approbation from his subjects, supplies 
were voted for the purpose by Parliament and by the 
clergy in convocation, and to crown all, large sums were 
subscribed by the wealthy at the King's particular re- 
quest. An unprecedented treasure was thus accumulated, 
but the means employed to raise it were not greatly 
*Benevo- relislicd. The subscriptions of the wealthy 
lences.' were called benevolences^ being regarded as 

voluntary donations expressive of the goodwill and 
patriotism of those contributing. But from the influence 
brought to bear upon the donors they were felt to be of 
the nature of extortion ; for Edward himself, in many 
cases, solicited contributions personally. Though nomi- 
nally a free gift, no tax was ever felt more oppressive ; 



1475- Wa7' with France, 191 

and the evil example set by Edward was unfortunately 
followed by several of his successors. 

2. In the summer of 1475 Edward crossed the sea 
with a magnificent army. Before embarking, he sent 
Garter king of arms to Louis to require him 

to deliver up the kingdom of France to him invades 
as his lawful inheritance. Another king of ^^^"c^- 
France would doubtless have treated with contempt this 
extravagant claim which the English still continued to 
reassert. But Louis had no thought of resisting by force 
of arms. The invading army w^as strong, and if the 
Duke of Burgundy had brought the amount of aid that 
might have been expected, it would have been quite w^ithin 
the power of the allies to have dealt a verv^ severe blow 
against France. The duke, however, had allowed him- 
self to be occupied too long with an expedition into Ger- 
many, where he laid siege to Neuss near Diisseldorf, and 
at his coming he failed to give Edward satisfaction. Of 
this Louis took advantage. He told Garter he was v/ell 
aware that the King of England did not mean to invade 
France on his own account, and that it v/as apparent the 
Duke of Burgundy could not give him much assistance ; 
then dismissing the herald with a handsome present, he 
promised him a still more valuable reward if he could 
prevail upon his master to consent to peace. 

3. Edward was greatly flattered with the thought that 
he had so soon inspired his enemy with a desire to treat, 
and the wily King of France omitted no art to deepen 
the impression. No sooner, therefore, had the English 
king set foot upon the Continent than Louis lquJs ^^^^^ 
sent to him to know if he was disposed to ^^ ^"^^^t- 
come to terms, suggesting at the same time that the 
Duke of Burgundy had been using Edward for his own 
ends, and that the year was so far advanced that the 
invaders could not hope to make much progress before 



192 Edward IV. ch. vm. 

the winter. Negotiations were accordingly opened, and 
though the Enghsh began, as usual, with their formal 
demand of the whole realm of France, they gradually 
abated their pretensions. First they lowered their de- 
mands to the restitution of Normandy and Guienne. 
But Louis had fully resolved beforehand to consent to no 
cession of territory ; and in the end the English were 
A seven Satisfied with a seven years' truce and the pay- 

mfce ment of a large yearly pension by France to 

arranged. England. This payment they were free to 
regard as an acknowledgment of Edward's sovereignty 
over France, while Louis and his friends took a different 
view of it. They called it a pension ; the English a 
tribute. A liberal distribution of pensions was also 
made by Louis to the chief councillors of the King of 
England for their services in promoting the peace. 

\, At the same time provisions were made in the 
treaty which gave hope that it might one day be turned 
into a lasting peace ; for it was arranged that the Dau- 
phin Charles should marry Edward's eldest daughter 
Elizabeth as soon as the parties wxre of sufficient age. 

5. Matters being thus settled, an interview took place 
between the two kings at Pequigny on the Somme. A 
Interview at bridge was thrown across the river with a 
Pequigny. woodcn grating in the middle, through which 
they shook hands. This arrangement had been made by 
the suspicious Louis to prevent the possibility of trea- 
cheiy ; mindful of the fate of John the Fearless, Duke ot 
Burgundy, he allowed no wicket within the barrier. But 
after swearing to observe the treaty on both sides, the 
two kings entered into conversation with the utmost 
freedom and familiarity ; insomuch that Louis, in an un- 
guarded moment, half invited the other to come and see 
him at Paris. The invitation was indeed thrown out in 
the way of jest, with some raillery about Edward's de- 



1475- France and BiLrgundy. 193 

votion to the fair sex, and the beautiful ladies who would 
be sure to captivate him in France ; but Edward, to the 
other's no little annoyance, seemed not at all disinclined 
to accept it seriously. Louis, however, took care not to 
give him an opportunity ; and in private he afterwards 
expressed an opinion to Commines that the kings of 
England had been often enough in Paris and in Nor- 
mandy already. He had great desire to preserve the 
friendship of Edward, but much preferred that he should 
keep on his own side of the water. 



VII. France and BurgiLudy. 

I. Before proceeding further with the story of English 
events it will now be advisable that we should say some- 
thing of the rivalry between the French king and his 
powerful vassal, Charles Duke of Burgundy. We have 
already seen the weakness to which the French monarchy 
was reduced at the beginning of the reign of Louis XI. 
The Burgundian court, on the other hand, although that 
of a feudal inferior, was the most v/ealthy and magnifi- 
cent in all Europe. For some time also the Duke of 
Burgundy maintained the advantage he had gained over 
his sovereign in the war of the Public Weal. Louis 
formed a league against him with the citizens of Liege, 
but Charles contrived to seize his person and shut him 
up in the castle of Peronne until he made him atone for 
his intrigues by a considerable cession of territory. The 
people of Liege were at this time engaged in a second 
revolt against their bishop (who was their temporal ruler 
as wxll), although they had been already severely punished 
for their insubordination by Charles, by the forfeiture of 
all their ancient chartered rights and the demolition of 
the walls of the town. They would naturally have looked 
for assistance from the King of France ; but Louis had 

O 



194 Edward IV. ch. vm. 

fallen so completely into the power of Charles, that to 
gain his liberty he disowned his allies and offered to 
come with the Duke of Burgundy to Liege, where he wit- 
nessed with apparent satisfaction the most terrible ven- 
iMassacre geance taken on his own supporters. The city 
of Liege. ^yg^s Completely sacked, and the inhabitants 
were massacred even in the churches by a brutal soldiery. 
After this, Louis endeavoured, by supporting the Earl 
of Warwick, to deprive Charles of his ally the King of 
England, — a design which, as we have seen, gave much 
greater anxiety to the Duke of Burgundy than it did to 
Edward himself, who could not be awakened to his 
danger until it was too late. At length, owing to the 
French king's repeated breaches of faith, Charles took 
it upon him to declare his independence of the French 
crown and made a treaty with the Emperor Frederic III., 
who engaged to bestow upon him the title of king, 
instead of duke, of Burgundy, on condition that he would 
give his daughter Mar}^ in marriage to the Emperor's son 
Charles Maximilian. To conclude this matter Charles 

Lnd^he^ repaired to a diet at Treves in 1473, but the 
Emperor. Emperor receded from his part of the engage- 
ment and retired from Treves when everything was ready 
for Charles's coronation. In resentmxnt of this affront 
Charles next year invaded Germany and laid siege to 
Neuss — an operation which, as already mentioned, pre- 
vented him from fulfiUing punctually his engagements 
with England in the war which they had agreed to under- 
take together against France. 

2. It was always the policy of Louis to raise up 
enemies for Charles without, if possible, allowing his own 
hand to be seen in the business. By his subtle and mys- 
terious diplomacy Charles was involved in wars with the 
Swiss, and in 1476 he sustained a great defeat 
at Granson on the borders of Lake Neufcha- 



1476. Fate of Clarence. 195 

tel, which was followed by another equally disastrous at 
Morat. Here another enemy had taken part against 
him, Rene II., Duke of Lorraine, whom he had deprived 
of the possession of his duchy. The people of Lorraine 
now expelled the Burgundian garrisons, and the retreat of 
Charles seemed almost hopelessly cut off. Nevertheless, 
even in the midst of winter, Charles penetrated into 
Lorraine and compelled the duke to return in haste to 
defend his capital, Nancy. A short and de- a.d. 1477, 
cisive battle took place under the walls of the -^^"- 5- 
town. The Burgundians were put to flight and Charles 
himself was slain. By his last campaigns he more 
especially merited the title by which he is known in his- 
tory. His cavalry and artillery laboured under the 
greatest disadvantages among the Swiss mountains, and 
he lost two great battles by a disregard of common pru- 
dence. He is commonly spoken of in English as Charles 
the Bold, but the French still more truly namxC himi Charles 
the Rash. 

VIII. Fate of Clarence — The Scotch War — Death of 
Edward. 

I. It might have been supposed that the House of 
York was now securely seated upon the throne ; and, so 
far as regarded Edward himself, nothing more occurred 
to disturb his possession. But the family divisions which 
had already sprung up pursued that house ultimately 
to its ruin. The breach between the King and his 
brother Clarence, it soon appeared, was only 
superficially healed over. A quarrel also took between the 
place between Clarence and his other brother, Qarenc^e^ 
Richard Duke of Gloucester. After the death and Glou- 
of Edward Prince of Wales, the son of King 
Henr>', at Tewkesbury, his wudow Anne, who, it will be 
remembered, was a daughter of Warwick the King-maker, 



ig6 Edzvard IV, ch. vm. 

was sought by Gloucester in marriage ; but Clarence, 
who had married her elder sister, opposed his suit and 
attempted to conceal her. Richard, however, discovered 
her in London in the disguise of a cook-maid, and had 
her removed to the Sanctuary 'of St. Martin's. When 
Clarence was no longer able to prevent the match, he 
still refused to divide with his brother the inheritance of 
their father-in-law the Earl of Warwick. By the medi- 
ation of Edward the matter was at length settled, and an 
act was passed in Parliament making a division of 
Warwick's lands between the royal brothers, with very 
little consideration for the rights of his surviving countess. 

2. But in the course of a few years symptoms of the 
old ill-will broke out between the Duke of Clarence and 
Clarence Edward himself. On the death of Charles 
favom- Duke of Burgundy, Clarence, who was then a 
again, widower, was desirous to marry his daughter 
and heiress Mary. Such a match would have made him 
a powerful continental prince, and his suit was favoured 
by his sister Margaret, the widow of the duke ; but 
Edward threw every obstacle in the way. This, in 
addition to some former injuries, real or supposed, em- 
bittered Clarence against his brother in a way he did not 
care to conceal. At last, some gentlemen of his house- 
hold having been accused of sorcery, condemned, and 
executed, Clarence, before the King's council, protested 
his belief in their innocence. This step was treated by 
the King as dangerous to the administration of justice, 
and he caused his brother to be arrested and committed 
to the Tower. 

3. When Parliament met in the beginning of the year 
1478, Clarence was impeached of treason by his own 
A.D. 1478. brother before the House of Peers. No other 
impeached ^ccuscr Stepped forward but the King him- 
of treason, self ; but the whole of his past intrigues and 



1478. Fate of Claj'ence, 197 

rebellions were now brought up against him. It was 
related in the indictment how he had been already par- 
doned the most serious offences, and yet had conspired 
again against his brother. It was set forth also how at one 
time, for the gratification of his ambition, he had not hesi- 
tated to cast a stigma upon his own mother, declaring 
his brother Edward illegitimate and himself the true heir 
of his father. With these a number of other circum- 
stances were related, all tending to show that he made it 
still his aim to supplant King Edward. The 
lords found Clarence guilty and he was con- 
demned to death. Execution of the sentence was, how- 
ever, delayed for several days, until the Speaker of the 
House of Commons, coming to the bar of the Lords, 
desired that the matter might be brought to a 
conclusion. Shortly afterwards the duke was death, 
put to death within the Tower in a manner so ^'^^' ^^* 
very secret that, although the day was known, the kind of 
death he suffered was a matter of uncertainty. A singu- 
lar report, however, got abroad that he had been drowned 
in a butt of Malmsey wine. 

4. Perhaps the very secrecy of the execution, if such it 
might be called, was owing to Edward's reluctance to 
carry out the sentence ; for there is reason to believe, 
alter all, that the whole proceedings were painful to him. 
After the death of Clarence, it is said, when any man 
besought the King for the pardon of an offender, he 
would exclaim, ^ O unfortunate brother, that no man 
would ask pardon for thee ! ' But whatever the effect on 
Edward^s peace of mind, the removal of Clarence con- 
tributed to the quiet of his kingdom. For he had been, 
beyond all question, factious and turbulent in the ex- 
treme. Yet he had some c[ualities which won him the 
favour of the multitude and made him a popular idol. 
His popularity, too, was all the more dangerous to 



198 ■' Edivard IV. ch. viii. 

Edward because, according to an act of Parliament 
passed during the restoration of Henry VI., Clarence 
ought to have been the legitimate king after the death 
of Edward Prince of Wales. Of this act of Parliament, 
of course, Edward did not recognise the authority ; but 
he felt it necessary now to get his Parliament to re- 
peal it. 

5. There is little else that is memorable in Edward's 
reign except a w^ar with Scotland that broke out at the 
close of it. To strengthen his family upon the throne, 
Edward had arranged marriages for most of his children 
with foreign princes, and while his eldest daughter Eliza- 
beth was contracted by treaty to the dauphin, Cecily, the 
third, was engaged to Prince James, the eldest son of 
James III. of Scotland. In consideration of this latter 
match Edward had agreed to give w^ith his daughter a 
dower of 20,000 marks, of which three instalments had 
already been paid in advance, though the parties had 
not yet arrived at a marriageable age. Some misunder- 
standing, however, broke out between the two kings, 
partly, as it is supposed, through the intrigues of Louis XL, 
who, as the time drew near when the dauphin ought to 
have claimed his bride, showed a great disposition to 
evade his own obligations to England. But whatever 
James III. I'^'^^y have been the exact cause, Edward and 

invades Tamcs each accused the other of unfair deal- 

England, •' 
A.D. 1480. ing, and James in the spring of 1480 actually 

marched an army across the Borders into Northumber- 
land. 

6. The King of England, for his part, commissioned 
his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester to lead his forces 

a2;ainst the invader. At the same time the 

May 12 

domestic state of Scotland gave Edward great 
advantages. James III. was a king distinguished for a 
love of art and science, which his nobles held in great 



1482. The Scotch War, 199 

contempt. His court was the resort of musicians and 
architects, by whose advice he was supposed to be 
governed in matters affecting the weal of his kingdom. 
His own brothers were disaffected to him. One of 
them, the Earl of Mar, is said to have been put to 
death by his orders. The other, Alexander Duke of 
Albany, escaped to France, but was invited over to 
England by Edward, with whom he entered ^.d. 1482, 
into treaty for assistance to make himself King J""^ ^^• 
of Scotland, pretending that his brother was illegitimate. 
He engaged, on obtaining his kingdom, to deliver up 
Berwick to the English, and he went with the Duke of 
Gloucester to lay siege to that town, which surrendered 
with very little resistance. James, meanwhile, was ad- 
vancing at the head of his forces to make a new inroad 
on the English Border ; but having arrived at Lauder, a 
conference v/as held in the church by his dis- 
contented lords, who in the end seized seven of lords seize 
the detested favourites and hanged them over death^he^ 
the bridge. The Scotch army was then dis- Ring's 
banded and the King conveyed back to 
Edinburgh by the nobles, who extorted from him a full 
pardon for what they had done. Albany Albany and 
and Gloucester then marched on to Edin- Gloucester 

march to 

burgh, and were received within the city as Edinburgh. 
friends. 

7. But Albany was well aware that his title to the 
crown of Scotland would not be supported within the 
realm itself. A compromise was therefore arranged, and 
a peace was concluded between all parties. The sums 
advanced by Edward for his daughter's dower were re- 
paid, and Berwick was given up to England. Albany, 
however, very soon afterwards renewed his intrigues v/ith 
Edward ; as a consequence of which he was attainted by 
the Parliament of Scotland. 



200 Edward IV. ch. viil 

8. As for Edward, he had scarcely composed this dis- 
pute with Scotland when he met with a cruel mortifica- 
Louis XL tion at the hands of Louis XI. of France. It is 
with^^ ^^^^^ evident that that wily monarch had never really 
Edward. intended the match between the dauphin and 
the Princess Elizabeth to take effect. Edward, on the 
other hand, had been induced by the prospect of this 
alliance to make peace with Louis on more easy terms, 
perhaps, than he might otherwise have granted. Time 
passed away, however, and Louis took no steps to bring 
the matter to a conclusion, till at last a great opportunity 
presented itself of violating his engagement openly. 
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, had been defeated 
and slain at Nancy in 1477. ^^ l^^t an only daughter, 
Mary, to inherit his rich dominions, which included not 
only Burgundy but a great part of the Low Countries. 
Her territories were invaded by Louis, but she married 
Maximilian of Austria, son of the Emperor Frederick 
III., who, though the poorest prince of Europe, was a 
very good soldier and recovered for her several places 
that had submitted to the French. The Duchess Mary, 
however, was unexpectedly cut off in March 1482 by a 
fall from her horse. She left two young children, Philip 
and Margaret, of whom the former was heir to the duchy; 
but their father Maximilian was despised by the Flemings 
and had no means of making his authority respected. 
The men of Ghent, who were secretly encouraged by 
Louis, took possession of his children and compelled him 
to govern as they pleased ; till in the end he was driven 
to conclude with the French king a treaty at Arras by 
which Margaret was to be married to the dauphin and 
to have as her dower some of the most valuable lands in 
Burgundy, taken from the inheritance of her brother 
Philip. 

9. This treaty was concluded on December 23, 1482. 



1483. Death of Edward I V, 20 1 

The mortification it gave to Edward was extreme, and 
French writers say that he died of the disap- Death of 
pointment. Whether that be the case or not, i^dward. 
he did not survive it four months ; for he died on April 9, 
1483. With many great defects in his character, he was 
a king more in sympathy with his people than any sove- 
reign that had been seen in England since the days of 
Edward III. Handsome in person and affable in man- 
ner, he was always easy to be approached. He was a 
great favourite with the citizens of London, and rather 
too much so with their wdves. Careless and self-indul- 
gent, he was greatly given to licentiousness, and forgot 
the affairs of his kingdom in pursuing his own pleasures. 
He was a good soldier but a bad general, a jovial com- 
panion but a poor statesman. His personal influence 
with his subjects was higher perhaps than that of any of 
his predecessors ; but he cannot be regarded as by any 
means a great king. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EDWARD V. 

I. Edward, the son and heir of the deceased king, w^as 
at Ludlow on the borders of Wales when his father died. 
He had been sent thither as Prince of Wales to hold a 
court and keep the countiy in good order; for which 
purpose a council had been assigned to him consisting 
originally of his uncles the Dukes of Clarence and Glou- 
cester, his maternal uncle Anthony Earl Rivers, Lord 
Hastings, and several others. But the Duke of Clarence 
was dead, the Duke of Gloucester in the North, and Lord 
Hastings in London ; so that when young Edward, who 



202 Edward V. ch. ix. 

was only in his thirteenth year, received the news of his 
own accession to the throne, he was surrounded principally 
by his mother's relations. 

2. Now it was most unfortunate for the young King 
himself that both his mother and her kinsfolk were looked 
upon with dislike and jealousy by the old nobility. The 
The old Woodvilles had always been regarded as up- 
nobility Starts, but under the reign of the late king no 
the Wood- loyal subject could say anything against them. 
viUes. T\vt, Council in London, however, were of 
opinion that it would be advisable to remove the new 
King entirely from the influence of his maternal relatives ; 
and though the Queen Dowager desired that he should 
be brought up to London with as large an escort as 
possible, the lords could not be persuaded to sanction a 
stronger retinue than was needed for his personal safety. 
Lord Hastings, who was governor of Calais, took alarm, 
and talked of departing immediately across the sea. The 
Queen's friends were obliged to give assurances that no 
large force should come up ; and orders were sent down 
to Ludlow that the company should on no account exceed 
2,000 horse. 

3. On his deathbed the late king had bequeathed the 
care of the young prince and his kingdom more especially 
to.his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester. When, there- 
fore, tidings of Edward's death were sent into the North, 
Richard at once set out for London. He reached North- 
ampton on April 29, and found that the young King had 
been there that day before him and had passed on to 
Stony Stratford, ten miles further on. He was met, how- 
ever, by the young King's uncle and half-brother, the 
Earl Rivers and Lord Richard Grey, who had ridden 
back to pay their respects to him in Edward's name. 
Henry Duke of Buckingham also joined the party. He, 
it is said, had been already in communication with Glou- 



1483. Gloiiccster and the Queens Kin. 203 

cester. With apparent cordiality all sat down together 
to supper ; but after the retirement of Rivers and Grey 
the two dukes held a consultation, the result of which 
was that early next mornino^ they caused their 

, . 1,1 o Arrest of 

guests to be arrested, and pushed on to btony Rivers and 
Stratford before the royal party had time to ^^^^• 
get away. They obtained an audience of the young 
King, and in his presence accused his uncle Rivers and 
his two half-brothers, the Marquis of Dorset and Lord 
Richard Grey, of a design to usurp the government and 
oppress the old nobility. Dorset, it seems, who was Con- 
stable of the Tower, had taken supplies of arms and 
money out of that fortress and fitted out a small fleet ; 
w^hile Rivers and Lord Richard Grey had shown a most 
suspicious haste in bringing young Edward up to Lon- 
don. 

4. The poor lad could not believe these accusations, 
and burst into tears on hearing them. The two dukes, 
however, caused Rivers and Grey, with two other gentle- 
men of his household, to be sent in custody into Yorkshire, 
where, after being confined for nearly two months in 
different places, they v/ere ultimately beheaded at Pomfret. 
Meanwhile the young King continued his journey to 
London in the company of his uncle Gloucester and the 
Duke of Buckingham. Alarm had been at first created 
in the city by the news of the arrests made at Northamp- 
ton, but the fact became known that large quantities of 
armour and weapons were found among the baggage of 
Rivers and the King's attendants ; and this discovery 
produced an impression that their imprisonment was per- 
fectly justified. The mayor and citizens accordingly met 
the young King and his uncle at Hornsea Park and con- 
ducted him into the city. They entered it on May 4, a 
day that had been originally set apart for Edward's coro- 
nation. That ceremony was now deferred till June 22. 



204 Edzuard V, ch. ix. 

Meanwhile the Duke of Gloucester was declared Pro- 
The Duke tcctor of the young King and his kingdom, 
ter^amecf' ^^^ ^ parliament was summoned to assemble 
Protector. three days after the coronation. 

5. But the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Woodville, on 
hearing that her brother and her son had been arrested at 
The Queen Northampton, had quitted Westminster Palace 
takeT^^^ and gone into the adjoining Sanctuary. Here 
Sanctuary. Rothcrham, Archbishop of York, who had been 
lord chancellor at the death of Edward IV., brought her 
the Great Seal of England as a guarantee that nothing 
should be done against the interest of her son. This act 
was a grave official misdemeanour, which he had soon cause 
to repent ; for the office of chancellor was taken from him, 
and a censure was passed upon him by the Council for 
letting the Seal go out of his custody. The Queen's 
influence, which had been so great during the reign of her 
husband, was now completely at an end, and the old 
nobility rejoiced at having got rid of her ascendancy — a 
revolution, as Lord Hastings triumphantly remarked, that 
had cost no more blood than a cut finger. 

6. Hastings, indeed, had been a principal cause of 
this change ; but notwithstanding his open boast he seems 
very soon to have repented it and held meetings with the 
Queen's friends at St. Paul's to consider how to get the 
King out of Richard's power. Richard at the same time 
held meetings with his supporters at -Crosby's Place in 
Bishopsgate Street, where he then resided. At last at 
a council held within the Tower, he caused Hastings 
Hastings Suddenly to be arrested and immediately 
beheaded. after beheaded on Tower Green. Morton 
Bishop of Ely, and Archbishop Rotherham were also 
placed in confinement. The Dukes of Gloucester and 
Buckingham then sent for the principal citizens, and 
appearing before them in rusty armour which they had 



1483. Execution of Hastings, 205 

suddenly put on, explained that they had only that morning 
heard of a conspiracy formed against themby Hastings and 
others, who would have killed the Protector and taken 
the government into their own hands. 

7. This sudden execution of one who, to outward 
appearance, had been all along most friendly to the two 
dukes against whom he was said to have conspired, occa- 
sioned general astonishment. The act was certainly 
quite illegal, and it is hard to see how it could have been 
necessary even in self-defence. Read by the light of 
subsequent events it seems to admit only of one interpre- 
tation — that Richard was at this time plotting his own 
elevation to the' throne, and, finding that Hastings could 
not be relied on to second his designs, had determined to 
remove him. But an impression does seem to have been 
conveyed, which is stated as a simple fact in a history 
written many years after, that Richard on this occasion 
only anticipated violence by equally high-handed mea- 
sures of his own. The view, however, which has obtained 
most general currency is derived from a very graphic 
account of the scene in the council chamber written by 
Sir Thomas More, who unquestionably obtained his in- 
formation from Cardinal Morton, at that time Bishop of 
Ely, one of the persons then arrested by the Protector. 
According to this narrative the blow which fell upon 
Hastings altogether took him by surprise. The story is, 
in brief, as follows. 

8. The Protector made his appearance in the council 
chamber about nine o'clock in the morning. His manner 
was gracious. He blamed his owti laziness The scene 
for not coming earlier, and turning to Morton ciVilTthe"^" 
Bishop of Ely, said, ^ My lord, you have ver}' Tower. 
good strawberries in your garden at Holborn ; I pray you 
let us have a mess of them.' After this, having opened 
the business of the council and engaged the lords in con- 



2o6 Edward V, 



CH. IX. 



versation he took leave of them for a time. Between ten 
and eleven o'clock he returned. His manner was altoge- 
ther altered, and as he took his seat he frowned on the 
assembly and bit his lips. After a pause he asked what 
punishment they deserved who had conspired against the 
life of one so nearly related to the King as himself, and 
entrusted with the government of the kingdom. The 
council was confounded, but Hastings, presuming on his 
familiarity with the Protector, said they deserved the 
punishment of traitors. ^That sorceress my brother's 
wife,' exclaimed Richard, ' and others with her, see how 
they have wasted my body by their sorcery and witch- 
craft ! ' And as he spoke he bared his left arm and 
showed it to the council, shrunk and withered, as it always 
had been. He added that one of the accomplices of the 
Queen Dowager in this business was Jane Shore, who had 
been one of the mistresses of the late king her husband, 
and since his death had become the mistress of Hastings. 
9. The accusation against the Queen Dowager, we 
are told, was not at all displeasing to Hastings, who 
regarded her w^ith deadly hatred ; but when the Protector 
mentioned the name of Shore's wife he felt very differently. 
He, however, ventured to reply ^ Certainly, my lords, if 
they have done so heinously, they are worthy of heinous 
punishment.' ' What,' exclaimed Richard, ^ dost thou 
serve me with ifs and ands ? I tell thee they have done it, 
and that I will make good on thy body, traitor ! ' On this 
he struck his fist upon the council table with great force. 
Armed men rushed in, crying ' Treason ! ' Hastings and 
some others, including Morton, were arrested, and Lord 
Stanley had a blow aimed at his head with a poleaxc. 
Richard then bade Hastings instantly prepare for death, 
swearing by St. Paul that he would not dine till he had seen 
his head off. He accordingly made his confession to the 
first priest that could be found. A log of timber intended 



1483. Jane Shore, 207 

for some repairs in the Tower served the purpose of a block^ 
and before noon his head was severed from his body. 

10. In what manner Jane Shore had incurred the 
Protector's displeasure it is difficult to understand. Rich- 
ard accused her of witchcraft and of being an accomplice 
of Hastings in a scheme for his destruction ; on which 
charges he sent her to prison and stripped her of almost 
all her property. After a time, however, he handed her 
over to the Bishop of London to inflict spiritual punish- 
ment upon her as an unchaste woman, and she was com- 
pelled to do open penance one Sunday, going through the 
streets in her kirtle with a taper in her hand. The exhi- 
bition, however, excited the compassion of the spectators, 
who looked upon her punishment as due only to malice 
and not to any real desire on Richard's part to promote 
public morality. 

11. Three days before the execution of Hastings the 
Protector had written to the city of York, desiring a force 
to be sent up immediately to London to counteract the 
designs of the Queen Dowager and her friends, whom he 
accused of conspiring against him and Buckingham, and 
attempting the ruin of the old nobiHty. Some hasty 
levies arrived in consequence in the course of a week or 
ten days, and were mustered in Moorfleids. Orders were 
also sent into the North for the execution of Rivers, 
Lord Richard Grey, and two other gentlemen w^ho 
had been arrested in accompanying the King up to 
London. Meanwhile Richard persuaded the council 
that his nephew Richard Duke of York, who was with 
the Queen his mother in Sanctuary, should be sent 
for to take up his residence with the King his brother. 
A deputation, headed by Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, was accordingly sent to the Queen, and 
she delivered the lad into their hands. A letter written a 
few days after says that he was received by Richard at 



2o8 Edzvard V. ch. ix. 

the Star Chamber door 'with many loving words.' He 

was conducted by the Cardinal to the Tower 

Duke of and was treated with all the honour that be- 

Yorkde- came his birth. But neither he nor the Kine 

livered to «=> 

the Pro- his brother ever left the Tower again. 

12. On Sunday, June 22, the citizens of Lon- 
don were astonished by a sermon dehvered at Pauls 
Cross, a little open-air pulpit which stood at the north-east 
corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. Here preachers of distinc- 
tion often addressed the people on public questions ; but the 
boldness of the preacher on this occasion was quite un- 
precedented. He was a man of considerable reputation, 
Dr Shaw's ^V I'^^.me Dr. Shaw. His text was taken from 
sermon. the Book of Wisdom iv. 3 — ' Bastard slips 

shall not take deep root/ — and the whole line of his 
argument was to show that the children of King Edward 
IV. v.'ere illegitimate. From this it was inferred that the 
true right to the crown was in the person of Richard 
Duke of Gloucester, who, having arranged to be present 
during the discourse, was made the object of a special 
compliment. The people, however, listened in mute as- 
tonishment, and the preacher seems to have gained 
little credit for an act which was clearly that of a syco- 
phant. 

13. Nevertheless, on the Tuesday following, at a 
meeting of the common council of the city of London in 
the Guildhall, a message was received from the 
June 24. Protector through the medium of the Duke of 

Buckingham and other lords, as to the claim advanced by 
him to the crown. Buckingham, who spoke with re- 
markable ability, entered into a statement from which he 
drew the conclusion that the title of the Duke of Glou- 
cester was preferable to that of his nephew Edward. 
And although we are told by a city chronicler that the 
matter of his address was not so much admired as the 
eloquence with which it was delivered, the mayor and 



1483. Edzuai'd deposed. 209 

aldermen certainly proceeded to act upon the information 
thus given them. 

14. A Parliament had been summoned to meet on the 
following day, and it is certain that a meeting of lords 
and commons actually took place, though, owing to some 
informality it was not afterwards regarded as a true par- 
liament. In this assembly, however, the question of 
Richard's title was brought forward, and the facts were 
stated to be as follows. The marriage of Edward IV. 
with EHzabeth Woodville had been invalid from the first. 
Not only had it been brought about by sorcery and witch- 
craft (this was gravely alleged in an Act of Parliament I) 
but at the very time it took place Edward was under a 
precontract to marry a certain Lady Eleanor Talbot, 
daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury and widow of Lord 
Butler ; and this according to the canon law made his 
marriage to Elizabeth Woodville void. Moreover, the 
Duke of Clarence had been attainted by Parliament, so 
that none of his children could inherit. Thus Richard 
was the only true heir of his father Richard r^^^ ^^^^.^ 
Duke of York, and of the crov/n of England ; is offered to 
and he was desired by the lords spiritual and 
temporal and the commons then assembled to assume 
that to which he was so entitled. 

15. A deputation consisting of a number of the lords 
and some of the principal knights, joined by the mayor 
and aldermen and chief citizens of London, then waited 
on Richard at Baynard's Castle, the residence of his 
mother the Duchess of York, and presented the petition. 
Richard intimated his acceptance, and next morning, 
accompanied by a great number of the nobility, 
proceeded in state to Westminster Hall, and -^^"^^ • 
afterwards to the Abbey and St. Paul's. From that 
day he began to reign as king by the name of 
Richard III. 

P 



210 R ichard II L ch. x. 

CHAPTER X. 

RICHARD III. 

I. The Royal Progress — Murder of the Princes, 

I. From what has been already said it will be seen that 
the accession, or, as it is commonly called, the usurpation 
of Richard III., was the result of a struggle between 
different parties among the nobility, in which the ablest 
and the most high-handed carried the day. Dislike of 
the Woodvilles was the one common bond by which the 
greater part of the nobles could be united ; and Richard, 
with his ally the Duke of Buckingham, made use of it for 
his own purposes. But though this feeling was strong 
Change of ^.nd general enough to give him a complete 
towards victory over his opponents, there was no real 

Richard Sympathy between him and the greater part 

attained of those wlio for the moment supported him, 

the crown. ^^^ j^ ^^^^ inevitable that when he had attained 
the crown, feelings of a different kind should begin to 
show themselves. And so we are told expressly by one 
writer of the time that as soon as he had. become king 
he lost the hearts of his nobihty, ' insomuch that such as 
before loved and praised him and would have jeopardied 
life and goods with him if he had remained still as Pro- 
tector, now murmured and grudged against him in such 
wise that few or none favoured his party, except it were 
for dread or for the great gifts that they received of him ; 
by mean whereof he wan divers to follow his mind, the 
which after deceived him.' Yet, looking merely to the 
circumstances of his accession, Richard was not a usurper 
in the strict sense of the word. He did not seize, but was 
invited to assume, the crown : and the body by which he 
was invited so to do had all the weight and dignity of a 
regular parliament. 



1483. A cccssion of RicJiard III. 2 1 1 

2. His coronation, which was fixed for July 6, just ten 
days after his accession, was celebrated with peculiar 
magnificence, and preceded by a gorgeous pro- His corona-; 
cession the day before, in which the greater ^^°"' J^^y ^• 
number of the nobility took part. At this time he made 
great professions that he would rule with clemency. A 
day or two before his coronation he entered the Court of 
King's Bench and sat down in the seat of the chief 
justice, from which he proclaimed a general amnesty for 
all offences against himself. In token of his sincerity he 
also sent for one Sir John Fogge, who had notoriously 
incurred his displeasure and taken refuge in a neighbour- 
ing sanctuary. Fogge had been a member of his brother 
King Edward's council, and had filled the office of trea- 
surer of the household during his reign. On being sent 
for he came out of sanctuary, and Richard in the presence 
of all the people took him openly by the hand. 

3. To confirm the good impression which these and 
other acts were calculated to make upon his subjects, 
Richard then set out upon a progress through „ 

the midland and northern counties. His goes on a 
course lay in the first place through Windsor, P^^^resb. 
Reading, and Oxford, to Woodstock and Gloucester. At 
Oxford he met with a magnificent reception, in w^hich 
Bishop Waynflete, the founder of Magdalen College, 
took a leading part. At Gloucester the city offered him 
a handsome present or 'benevolence,' unsolicited ; and 
the same was done at Worcester, which was the next 
place he visited. Both these gifts he dechned, as he had 
already done a similar offer from the metropolis, declaring 
he would rather have the hearts of his subjects than their 
money. He went on to Warwick, where he received 
ambassadors from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain ; and 
from thence by Coventry, Leicester, and Nottingham he 
went on to York, where the citizens had prepared for him 



212 Richard II L ch. x. 

a reception of more than ordinary splendour. It has been 
said that he was crowned a second time in this city ; but 
the truth seem.s to be merely that he and his queen, who 
had joined him at Warwick, with the Prince Edward their 
son, whom he that day created Prince of Wales, walked 
in a grand procession through the streets with crowns 
upon their heads. 

4. All this display tended to increase his popularity, 
especially in the North where he had been a long time 
resident before he became king. But in London and'the 
southern counties people began to be uneasy about his 
conduct towards the young princes his nephews. It is 
true King Edward himself, out of a confidence which was 
certainly misplaced, had appointed Richard the guardian 
of his children after his death, but the mode in which he 
exercised his rights was exceedingly suspicious. The 
two young princes were never seen out of the Tower, and 
nobody appears to have known anything about them. 
Their five sisters remained with their mother in the 
Sanctuary at Westminster ; but Richard had caused the 
Sanctuary to be surrounded with a band of armed men 
lest any of them should make their escape beyond sea. 
For it appears that plans had begun to be formed for 
carrying off one or more of them in disguise; doubts 
being already entertained whether their two brothers 
Avould not be cut off by violence. 

5. At length it was announced that even the Duke of 
Buckingham, who had hitherto been so strong a partizan 
of Richard, was interested in behalf of the young princes, 
and would put himself at the head of a confederacy for 
their liberation from the Tower. But scarcely had this 
news got abroad when it was made known that the object 
. of the proposed rising was hopeless, for the 
the two princes were no more. No one could tell how 

pnnces. ^^ ^^\itn they had been put to death ; but that 



1483. Murder of the two Princes, 213 

they had been murdered was the current rumour of the 
time, and it was not, for it could not be, contradicted. 

6. The circumstances of the crime seem, in fact, to 
have remained a secret for nearly twenty years ; but at 
length by the confession of some of the mur- ^. 
derers they were found to be, briefly, as fol- stances of 
lows : — Some time after Richard had set out ^^^' 
upon his progress he sent a messenger named John Green 
to Sir Robert Brackenbury, the Constable of the Tower 
commanding him to put his two young nephews to death. 
This order Brackenbury would not obey, and Green re- 
turned to his master at Warwick. Richard was greatly 
mortified, but sent one Sir James Tyrell to London with 
a warrant to Brackenbury to deliver up to him for one 
night all the keys of the Tower. Tyrell thus took the 
place into his keeping, and engaged the services of Miles 
Forest, one of those who kept the princes^ chamber, and 
John Dighton, his own groom, to carry out the wishes of 
the tyrant. These men entered the chamber when the 
two unfortunate lads were asleep and smothered them 
under pillows ; then having called Sir James to see the 
bodies, buried them at the foot of a staircase. Bracken- 
bury, it was supposed, caused them afterwards to be re- 
moved and buried secretly in some more suitable place ; 
but as he was dead long before the story got abroad, the 
place could never be ascertained. The fact, however, 
appears to have been that they were not removed at all ; 
for nearly two hundred years later, two skeletons cor-- 
responding to the age of the murdered youths were 
found in the very position where they were said to have 
been originally buried — at the foot of a staircase in the 
Tower. 

7. Unscrupulous as Richard was, the remorse that 
overtook him after this dreadful crime appears to have 
been very terrible indeed. ^ I have heard,' Richard's 
wrote Sir Thomas More, 'by credible report remorse. 



214 Richard III, ch. x. 

of such as were secret with his chamberers, that after this 
abominable deed done he never had quiet in his mind ; 
he never thought himself sure. When he went abroad 
his eyes whirled about, his body privily fenced, his hand 
ever on his dagger, his countenance and manner like one 
always ready to strike again. He took ill rest at nights, 
lay long waking and musing ; sore wearied with care and 
watch, he rather slumbered than slept. Troubled with 
fearful dreams, suddenly sometimes started he up, lept 
out of his bed and ran about the chamber. So was his 
restless heart continually tossed and tumbled v/ith the 
tedious impression and stormy remembrance of his most 
abominable deed.' 



II. The Rebellion of Buckingham, 

1. The news of the murder excited throughout the 
countr}' strong feelings of grief and indignation. But to 
those implicated in the conspiracy for the liberation of 
the princes it was more especially alarming. A new 
object, however, was presently supplied to them. The 
male issue of Edward IV. being now extinct, a project 

was formed for marrying his eldest daughter 
mafriao^J^of Ehzabcth to Henr}^ Earl of Richmond, a 
Princess Eli- refugee in Brittany, who was regarded as the 
Henry Earl head of the dcposcd House of Lancaster ; and 
mond^^" Buckingham wrote to the earl to cross the seas, 

while he and others in England should make 
an insurrection in his favour. 

2. Now, it is true the direct male line of the House 
of Lancaster died with King Henry VL ; but this Earl of 
Descent of Richmond was descended from John of Gaunt 
the Earl of through his mother ]\Iargaret Beaufort in the 

ic mon . nianner shown in the subjoined pedigree. He 
was also, by the father's side, a nephew of Henry VI., 



1483. 



Earl of Richmond's Pedigree. 215 



w 




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12; 


1— I 













■ Q 


w 


H 


C/2 




p 









ffi 






2i6 Richard IIL ch. x. 

but this relationship, it will be seen, gave him no claim to 
the crown. On the other hand, his claim through the 
Beauforts was a little doubtful, as John Beaufort, Earl of 
Somerset, the first of the line, was born before the mar- 
riage of his father John of Gaunt with his mother Cathe- 
rine Swynford. The Beauforts, it is true, had been made 
legitimate by an Act of Parliament, but there was still 
some question whether they were not excluded from the 
crown. Richmond, however, was undoubtedly, after the 
death of Henry VI., the most direct representative of 
the line of John of Gaunt, and had been carried 
over to Brittany by his uncle the Earl of Pembroke, 
soon after the final overthrow of the Lancastrians at 
Tewkesbury. 

3. Now it will be seen that the Duke of Buckingham 
was also descended from the Beauforts, and it is said 
that owing to this fact he had thought at one time of lay- 
ing claim to the crown himself. It is also supposed that he 
had received a private disappointment from King Rich- 
ard which had done much to cool the friend- 
of Bucking- ship he had hitherto entertained towards him. 
ham. g^^ j^g ^^g further greatly influenced by soine 

conversations that he held with Morton Bishop of Ely, 
whom Richard had delivered to his custody after his ac- 
cession ; and whom he kept as a prisoner at Brecknock. 
Morton very soon discovered his disaffection towards King 
Richard, and led him gradually into the design of calling 
over the Earl of Richmond from Brittany and marrying 
him to the Princess Elizabeth. This project was commu- 
nicated to the Countess of Richmond, the earPs mother, 
and to the Queen Dowager, by both of whom it was warmly 
approved. The Marquis of Dorset and others of the 
Woodville party arranged with Buckingham a number of 
simultaneous risings to take place on October 18 in the 
south and west of England; and the Earl of Richmond 



1483. Rebellion of Bitckingliain, 217 

was expected at the same time to land on the southern 
coast and lead the movement in person. 

4, On the day appointed, accordingly, the partisans of 
Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, took up arms under 
different leaders in Kent, in Berkshire, at Outbreak 
Salisbury, and at Exeter. The Duke of Rebellion, 
Buckingham also took the field that day at Oct. 18. 
Brecknock. The King seems to have been nearly taken 
by surprise, but the news of the intended outbreak had 
reached him, a week before it took place, at Lincoln. He 
wrote in great haste to his chancellor to bring or send 
immediately the Great Seal in order that he might make 
out commissions of array. Hastening southwards he re- 
ceived it at Grantham on the 19th. Commissions were 
immediately sent out to levy troops in the King's name, 
and a singular proclamation was issued on the 23rd, en- 
deavouring to excite public indignation against his oppo- 
nents as men of immoral lives who, despising the general 
pardon issued by the King for political offences, were 
leagued together for the maintenance of vice and the in- 
dulgence of unlawful pleasures. The ^Marquis of Dorset, 
it seems, had, since the death of Hastings, taken Jane 
Shore into his keeping, and according to this proclama- 
tion had been guilty of many other acts of immorality. 

5. Great rewards were offered by this proclamation 
for the capture of Buckingham, Dorset, and the Bishops 
of Ely and Salisbury ; for Bishop Morton, it should be 
mentioned, after his conversations with Buckingham,, 
had contrived to make his escape from Brecknock into 
the Isle of Ely, and soon after got beyond sea. The 
Bishop of Salisbury was a brother of Queen Elizabeth 
Woodville. One thousand pounds in money, or an 
estate in land worth one hundred pounds a year, was the 
price set upon the head of Buckingham. Such an amount 
was probably equal in value to about twelve thousand 



2 1 8 R ichard III, ch. x. 

pounds in modern money, or twelve hundred pounds a 
year in land. For the others the sums offered were not 
quite so large. Buckingham had boasted that he had as 
many liveries of the Stafford knot as Warwick the King- 
maker had of his cognisance, the bear and ragged staff. 
But however numerous the forces he could bring into the 
field, he was utterly unable to make use of them. Two 
gentlemen named Thomas Vaughan and Humphrey 
Stafford watched the roads about Brecknock to prevent 
his leaving Wales, and destroyed all the bridges across 
the Severn. Heavy rains then swelled the rivers and 
made a passage utterly impracticable. A great part of 
the land was flooded, provisions were not to be obtained, 
and the men of Buckingham disbanded. The duke him- 
self retired into Shropshire and took refuge with one of 
^ , . his retainers named Ralph Banaster, who, 

BucKing- ^ - - . 

ham be- tempted by the great reward oftered for his 

^^^^^ ' apprehension, delivered him up to the sheriff 

of the county. 

6. Richard, meanwhile, had been collecting forces 
and advancing towards the west of England. Bucking- 
ham on his capture was brought to him at Salisbury, and 

the Kino^ sfave orders for his instant execution. 

and exe- t^., 7 ,.,. r ■ ■, - 

cuted, Richard acted w^isely m refusing him an inter- 

°^' ^' view, for which he made urgent request ; for 

it seems to have been well known afterwards that he in- 
tended to have stabbed him to the heart. 

7. The capture and death of Buckingham completely 
put an end to the rebellion. Dorset and some of the 

other leaders at once abandoned all hope of 
oAh?^^ resistance and fled to Brittany. A few others 

rebellion. -were taken and executed — among the rest Sir 
Thomas St. Leger, who had married the Duchess of 
Exeter, the King's sister ; but the common people were 
spared. The Earl of Richmond set sail from Brittany 



1484. Second Invasion of Richmond, 219 

but met with a storm in mid-channel which dispersed his 
ships ; and though his own vessel neared the coast at 
Poole and at Plymouth, he could obtain no satisfactory 
assurance of a friendly reception on landing. He there- 
fore hoisted sail and recrossed the sea. 



III. Second Invasion of RicJunond—Richa7d^s Over- 
throw and Death. 

1. Thus Richard had obtained an almost bloodless 
triumph. He passed on to Exeter, where he received the 
congratulations of the citizens, and a purse of 200 gold 
nobles was presented to him. In the January following 
a Parliament met at Westminster which con- ^ ^^ ^ 3 
firmed his title to the crown and passed an Richard's 
act 01 attamder agamst the Earl of Richmond firmed in 
and his adherents. Upwards of ninety per- ^^^^1^"^^"^. 
sons were by this act branded as traitors and deprived of all 
their lands and honours ; but the Countess of Richmond, 
Henry's mother, who had been the chief organiser of 
the whole rebellion, w^as treated with leniency out of con- 
sideration for her husband, Lord Stanley. Her lands 
were given to her husband for life, and he undertook to 
be responsible for her conduct in the future. Another 
Act of this Parhament was to abolish the oppressive kind 
of taxation introduced by Edward IV. under the name 
of benevolences, which though they were professedly 
free-will offerings, had been really exacted under so much 
pressure as to reduce many persons from affluence to 
poverty. 

2. Before the Parliament separated the lords all took 
an oath of allegiance, not only to Richard as king, but 
to his son Edward Prince of Wales as heir-apparent, to 
whom they promised fealty after Richard's death. But 
within a few wrecks the young prince died after a brief 



220 Richard III. ch. x. 

illness, and Richard was childless. As the children of 
Edward IV. had been declared illegitimate and those of 
the Duke of Clarence could not inherit by reason of their 
fathers attainder, Richard then recognised as his heir 
John De la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, son of the Duke of 
Suffolk. 

3. Meanwhile, the Earl of Richmond was busy pre- 
paring for a second attempt at invasion. On Christmas 
Richmond Day he had held a meeting with his principal 
Wrhi?^" adherents in Rennes Cathedral, where he took 
Brittany. oath to marry the Princess Elizabeth as soon 
as he should obtain possession of the crown. Richard 
made application to the Duke of Brittany to deliver him 
up into his hands ; but the earl, having received warning, 
escaped into the dominions of Charles "\'III., the new 
King of France, who had just succeeded his father Louis 
XL, where he was soon rejoined by about 300 of his 
followers. Richard, however, endeavoured to defeat his 
designs in another way. He summoned a 
council of the lords spiritual and temporal, 
then in London, together with the lord mayor and alder- 
,, , men of the citv, and took oath in their pre- 

]\Iarch I. ' ^ 

sence that if the five daughters of ' Dame 
Elizabeth Grey' (meaning by that name the Queen 
Dowager, whom he no longer recognised as such) would 
come out of sanctuaiy and place themselves under his 
protection, he would not only assure them of life and 
liberty, but provide them with husbands as they came of 
age, and give each of them a marriage portion of the 
^^ ,^ value of 200 marks a year. He also en- 

Ihe Queen i , -, ir 

Dowager gaged to allow Elizabeth herself a pension 
daughters ^^ 7^^ marks a year for life. This offer the 
leave Ouecn Dowac^er and her daughters thought 

sanctuar>^ ."^ „ , ,. , 

It well to accept, and accordingly came out 
of sanctuar}-. 



14S5. The Qtiecn Dozuagcr and Richard III, 221 

4, It seems extraordinary' that after the murder of her 
sons the Queen Dowager should ever have been induced 
to repose the slightest confidence in Richard ; and yet 
there appears to be no doubt of the fact that some time 
after this she was nearly won over by his blandishments 
to break off her compact with Henr}^, whose cause she 
probably considered hopeless. She wrote to her son the 
Marquis of Dorset in France to withdraw himself from 
the Earl of Richmond's company ; and Dorset had in 
consequence secretly left Paris, where the earl was then 
staying, and was hastening towards Flanders on his way to 
England, when the French king's council, at the earl's 
urgent request, caused his flight to be arrested. It is 
even asserted that Richard attained such favour with the 
Queen Dowager, that in order to prevent her daughters 
marriage with the Earl of Richmond he proposed, in the 
expectation of his own queen's death, to marry her him- 
self ; and this project, as the chronicles relate, was 
actually approved by the mother, although very abhor- 
rent to the feelings of the princess herself. Such a story 
seems almost too monstrous to be believed. Perhaps the 
truth may be that immediately after his queen's 

death Richard did make some advances of ' ' ^^ ^' 
the kind, which even under these circumstances were 
disgraceful enough ; and the indignation they Richard 
aroused may have caused the stor}^ to be ex- disavows an 
aggerated. Certain it is that the King felt it marry Ms ^ 
necessar)' to make a public disavowal of the ^^^^^' 
intention within a very few weeks after his wife's death. 

5. But whatever arts Richard used — cajoler>^, pro- 
mises, bribes, or threats — to turn enemies into friends or 
to defeat the plans of his opponents, they never were suc- 
cessful except partially and for a time. Sir Thomas More, 
a great wit and genius, who in those days was a child, but 
afterwards wrote a life of King Richard from the infor- 



222 RicJiard III, ch. x. 

mation of persons then living, says of him that Svith 
large gifts he got him unsteadfast friendship, for which 
he was fain to pill and spoil in other places and get him 
steadfast hatred/ Before his brief reign came to an end 
he found himself obliged to replenish his empty ex- 
He raises chequer by having recourse once more to 
wl^-^^ those detested benevolences which he had 
lences. promised in Parliament should never again 

be levied. Such measures, of course, made him more 
than ever unpopular at home, w^hile the preparations of 
the Earl of Richmond abroad continually gave him more 
anxiety. The Earl of Oxford, who had given much 
trouble to his brother Edward IV., had been committed 
to the custody of Sir James Blount, governor of Hammes 
Castle, near Calais, brother of the Lord Mountjoy. Sir 
James released his prisoner, and both offered their ser- 
vices to the Earl of Richmond. The castle of Hammes 
was afterwards recovered into the King's hands, but only 
on condition that the garrison should be allowed to de- 
part with bag and baggage. 

6. By repeated proclamations Richard called upon 
his subjects to resist the intended invasion of Richmond 
wdth all their force. He denounced the earl and his fol- 
lowers as men who had forsaken their true allegiance and 
put themselves in subjection to the French king. He 
pointed out that owing to the illegitimacy of the Beauforts 
Henry could have no claim to the crown, and that even 
on the father's side he was come of bastard blood. He 
declared that he had bargained to give up for ever all 
claims hitherto made by the kings of England either to 
the crown of France, the duchy of Normandy, Gascony, 
or even Calais. Richmond, however, had sent messages 
into England by which he was assured of a considerable 
Richmond amount of support ; and he borrowed money 
Wales "^ ^^ from the King of France with which he fitted 



1485. Second Invasion of Richmond. 223 

out a small fleet at Harfleur and embarked for Wales, 
where his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, pos- 
sessed great influence. 

7. Richard, knowing of the intended invasion, but 
being uncertain where his enemy might land, had taken 
up his position in the centre of the kingdom. Following 
a plan first put in use by his brother Edward during the 
Scotch war, he had stationed messengers at intervals of 
twenty miles along all the principal roads to and lands 
the coast to bring him early intelligence. But Haven^^^*^ 
Henry landed at Milford Haven at the farthest Aug. i. 
extremity of South Wales, where, perhaps, Richard had 
least expected him ; and so small was the force by which 
he was accompanied that the news did not at first give 
the King very much anxiety. He professed great satis- 
faction that his adversary was now coming to bring 
inatters to the test of battle. The earl, how^ever, was 
among friends from the moment he landed. Pembroke 
was his native town, and the inhabitants expressed their 
willingness to serve his uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, as 
their natural and immediate lord. The ver>' men whom 
Richard had placed to keep the country' against him at 
once joined his party, and he passed on to Shrewsbury 
with little or no opposition. 

8. The King's ' unsteadfast friendships ' on the other 
hand were now rapidly working his ruin. His own 
attorney-general, ]M organ Kidwelly, had been Richard 

in communication with the enemy before he ^^^^^5'^*^ 
landed. Richard, however, was very naturally friends. 
suspicious of Lord Stanley, his rival's stepfather, who 
though he was steward of the royal household, had asked 
leave shortly before the invasion to go home and visit his 
family in Lancashire. This the King granted only on 
condition that he would send his son, George Lord 
Strange, to him at Nottingham in his place. Lord 



224 Richard I IL ch. x. 

Strange was accordingly sent to the King ; but when the 
news arrived of Henry's landing, Richard desired the 
presence of his father also. Stanley pretended illness, 
an excuse which could not fail to increase the King's sus- 
picions. His son at the same time made an attempt to 
escape, and being captured confessed that he himself and 
his uncle Sir William Stanley had formed a project with 
others to go over to the enemy ; but he protested his 
fathers innocence and assured the King that he would 
obey his summons. He was made to understand that 
his own life depended on his doing so, and he wrote a 
letter to his father accordingly. 

9. Richard having mustered his followers at Notting- 
ham went on to Leicester to meet his antagonist, and 
encamped at Bosworth on the night of August 21. The 
Earl of Richmond had arrived near the same place with 
an army of 5,000 men, which is supposed to have been 
not more than half that of the King. That day, however. 
Lord Stanley had come to the earl secretly at Atherstone 
to assure him of his support in the coming battle. He 
and his brother Sir William were each at the head of a 
force not far off, and were only temporising to save the 
life of his son Lord Strange. This information relieved 
Henry's mind of much anxiety, for at various times since 
he landed he had felt serious misgivings about the success 
of the enterprise. The issue was now to be decided on 
the following day. 

10. Early in the morning both parties prepared for 
the battle. Richard arose before daybreak, much agi- 
tated, it is said, by dreadful dreams that had 

Aug 22. 

haunted his imagination in the night time. 
But he entered the field wearing his crown upon his 
head, and encouraged his troops with an eloquent ha- 
rangue. There was, however, treason in his camp, and 
many of his followers were only seeking an opportunity 



1485. The Battle of Boszuorth, 225 

to desert and take part v\'ith the enemy. A warning 
indeed had been conveyed by an unknown hand to his 
foremost supporter^ the Duke of Norfolk, in the following 
rhyme, which was discovered the night before, written on 
the door of his tent : — 

* Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold, 
For Dickon, thy master, is bought and sold.' 

11. Lord Stanley, who had drawn up his men at about 
equal distance from both armies, received messages early 
in the morning from both leaders desiring his immediate 
assistance. His policy, however, was to stand aloof to 
the very last moment, and he replied in each case that he 
would come at a convenient opportunity. Dissatisfied 
with this answer, Richard ordered his son to be beheaded, 
but was persuaded to suspend the execution of the order 
till the day should be decided. 

12. After a discharge of arrows on both sides the 
armies soon came to a hand-to-hand encounter. Lord 
Stanley joined the earl in the midst of the en- ^, , , 

-1 1 -r- 1 r^T 1 11 -I The battle 

gagement, and the Earl of Northumberland, on of Bos- 
whose support Richard had relied, stood still "'^^'^^^' 
with all his followers and looked on. The day was going 
hard against the King. Norfolk fell in the thickest of 
the fight, and his son the Earl of Surrey, after fighting 
with great valour, was sun'ounded and taken prisoner. 
Richard endeavoured to single out his adversary, whose 
position on the field was pointed out to him. He sud- 
denly rushed upon Henry's body-guard and unhorsed 
successively two of his attendants, one of whom, the 
earl's standard-bearer, fell dead to the ground. The earl 
himself was in great danger but that Sir William Stanley, 
who had hitherto abstained from joining the combat, now 
endeavoured to surround the King with his force of 

Q 



226 Richard III. 



CH. X. 



3,000 men. Richard perceived that he was betrayed, 
Death of 'ind crying out ' Treason ! Treason ! ' endea- 
Richard. voured Only to sell his life as dearly as possible. 
Overpowered by numbers he fell dead in the midst of his 
enemies. 

13. The battered crown that had fallen from Richard's 
head was picked up upon the field of bkttle and Sir 
Henry William Stanley placed it upon the head 
imonThe ^^ ^^^ conqueror, who Avas saluted as king by 
battle-field, his wholc army. The body of Richard on the 
other hand was treated with a degree of indignity which 
expressed but too plainly the disgust excited in the minds 
of the people by his inhuman tyranny. It was stripped 
naked and thrown upon a horse, a halter being placed 
round the neck, and in that fashion carried into Leicester, 
where it was buried with little honour in the Grey Friars' 
church. 

14. Such vv'as the end of the last King of England of the 
line of the Plantagenets. In warlike qualities he was not 
inferior to the best of his predecessors, but his rule was such 
as alienated the hearts of the greater part of his subjects 
and caused him to be remembered as a monster. In per- 
son, too, he is represented to have been deformed, with the 
right shoulder higher than the left ; and he is traditionally 
regarded as a hunchback. But it may be that even his 
bodily defects were exaggerated after he was gone. 
Stories got abroad that he was born with teeth, and hair 
coming down to the shoulders, and that his birth was 
attended by other circumstances altogether repugnant to 
the order of nature. One fact that can hardly be a mis- 
statement is that he was small of stature — which makes 
it all the more remarkable that in this last battle he over- 
threw in personal encounter a man of great size and 
strength named Sir John Cheyney. He was, in fact, a 
great soldier-king, in whom alike the valour and the 



i^g^^ End of the Civil War, 227 

violence of his race had been matured and brought to a 
chmax by civil wars and family dissensions. 

15. It was inevitable that kings of this sort should 
give place to kings of a different stamp. His rival 
Henry, henceforth King Henry VH., inaugurated a new 
era, in which prudence and policy were made to serve the 
interests of peace, and secure the throne, even with a 
doubtful title, against the convulsions to which it had 
been hitherto exposed. By his marriage with the Prin- 
cess Elizabeth he was considered to have at length united 
the Houses of Yqrk and Lancaster, and he left to his son 
Henr>' VIH., who succeeded him, a title almost as free 
from dispute or cavil as that of any king in more recent 
times. 

16. The civil v/ars, in fact, had worked themselves 
out. The too pov>-erful nobility had destroyed each other 
in these internecine struggles ; and as the lords of each 
party were attainted by turns, their great estates were 
confiscated and passed into the hands of the cro^vn. 
This gave the Tudor sovereigns an advantage . that they 
knew well how to use. Watchful and suspicious of their 
nobility, they understood, as fevr other sovereigns did, the 
value of property; and under Henrv* VIII. the English 
monarchy attained a power and absolutism unparalleled 
before or since. 



CHAPTER XI. 

GENERAL VIEW OF EUROPEAN HISTORY. 

I. The civil wars in England of which we have novr related 
the histor}' are commonly called the Wars of the Roses, 
from the fact that the House of Lancaster as- Wars of 
sumed a red rose for its badge, and the House ^^-^ Roses, 
of York a white rose. Shakspeare, who has preserved in 

Q2 



228 General Viezu of Eitropean History, ch. xr, 

his plays a number of historical traditions the authority 
of which we cannot always verify, represents in one in- 
teresting scene at the beginning of the struggle the lords 
of both parties meeting in the Temple Gardens, and each 
plucking a rose, red or Avhite, to indicate his attachment 
to the Duke of Somerset or York. Whether such a scene 
actually took place and gave rise to those party badges it 
is impossible to say ; but there is no doubt that the 
Yorkists were known as the party of the White Rose, 
and their opponents as that of the Red. When at length 
Henry VII., the representative of the House of Lancaster, 
attained the crown and married the daughter of Edward 
IV., the marriage was spoken of as the union of the, 
Roses. 

2. This union was the first step in England towards that 
strengthening of the powers of the crown which was now 
absolutely necessary for the restoration of order. Since 
the days of Edward III. all authority had been weak 
because the sovereign power itself vras weak. It was the 
weakness of despotic caprice in Richard II., of usur- 
pation and civil war under the House of Lancaster, and 
of internal division in the House of York ; and all these 
causes combined to make the fifteenth century a period 
of violence and disorder approaching at times 
Tudors to anarchy. Under the steady rule of the 

England Tudors Ens^land recovered from this con- 
recovers «=» 

from dis- fusion ; the claims of the two rival houses 
were blended, the turbulent nobility were kept 
in strict subjection, law was administered with generally 
an impartial hand, peace was for the most part cherished, 
and commerce was protected. Disencumbered of the 
rule of any French territory except Calais, the English 
grew strong at home and became a nation compact and 
united under a race of sovereigns who were powerful 
enough to throw off the spiritual dominion of Rome, and 



Decay of Fcitdalisni, 22() 

to take a leading position among the potentates of 
Europe. 

3. But that which occurred in England occurred in 
other countries also. What are called the Middle Ages 
came to an end with the fifteenth century — a time of 
universal disorder, in the midst of which, however, a new 
order was gradually forming itself and gathering strength. 
The decay of feudalism, in fact, paved the way for the 
reorganisation of Europe. Great kingdoms Great 
sprang up where formerly had existed a num- fo"^^f °^fn 
ber of principalities held only in nominal sub- Europe. 
jection to a feudal sovereign, or where, as in England, a 
too powerful nobility had almost made themselves inde- 
pendent of the crown. France first emerged from the 
confusion ; afterwards Spain and England. By the end 
of the fifteenth century the nations of western Europe 
had settled down into nearly the same relative positions 
and occupied nearly the same territory that they have 
since retained. 

4. The connection between English and Continental 
history during this period is a subject which has not been 
altogether lost sight of in the preceding pages. But 
some general remarks on the progress of European 
nations may be desirable before we bring this work to a 
conclusion. 

5. There is at once a parallelism and a contrast during 
this period between the career of England and that of 
France. At no time were the fortunes of the 

two nations more closely linked together, connection 
The very same events form, during a con- ^fngH^ii^ 
siderable part of the fifteenth centur}^, the ^^}^ French 
leading features in the history of both. But ""^ °^^' 
the same events have in either case an opposite signifi- 
cance. The triumph of the one country was the abase- 
ment of the other, and the recovery of the second was 



230 General Vieiv of Eiiropean History, cii. xi 

accompanied by the demoralisation of the first. There 
is, moreover, quite an extraordinary amount of coinci- 
dence, and at the same time contrast, between the cir- 
cumstances by which the contemporary kings of England 
and of France were surrounded during the whole period 
of our narrative. The reign of Charles VI., who came to 
the throne just three years after Richard II., corresponds 
to those of three successive kings in England. At his 
accession he and Richard were both under age ; but 
Charles led his armies in person when he v/as fourteen, 
while Richard, though not deficient in courage, seldom 
asserted himself in any way except at a crisis like Wat 
Tyler's rebellion. The complaint in Richard's case was 
that he allowed himself to be governed by favourites ; 
which was perfectly true at those times when he was not 
coerced by his uncles. Towards the end of his reign, 
however, Richard, weary of his long subjection, laid 
claim to absolute power ; while Charles about the same 
time became deranged and was obliged to surrender the 
government to his uncles. After this the French court be- 
came divided by factions which left the kingdom an easy 
prey to the invader ; and the same king who, when a 
boy, had alarmed all England by the fleet he had col- 
lected at Sluys, was obliged in his latter days to make 
an English king his heir and invest him with all the 
powers of royalty to the exclusion of his own son. 

6. But the parallelism of which we have spoken is more 
striking after the death of Charles VI., when by a singu- 
lar coincidence the reigns of the English and French 
sovereigns correspond during three successions exactly 
to a year, with circumstances either so much alike, or sa 
contrasted, that they may be shown in parallel columns 
as follows : — 



England and France. 



231 



France. 

A.D. 1422. Charles VII. sue- \ 

ceeds his father Charles r 

VI., and j 

France loses an imbecile 
king and gets a stronger, \vho 
displays great abilities as a 
ruler. In his time — 



England. 

Henr}' VI. succeeds his father 
Henr>- V. 



England loses a strong king 
and gets an infant who exhibits 
no capacity for government 
even when he grows up. In his 
time — 
France recovers Normandy and Guienne, and deprives England 
of all her French dominions, except Calais. 



A.D. 1461. Louis XI. succeeds 
his father Charles VII., 
and 
A pohtic king consolidates 
the French monarchy, notwith- 
standing powerful combinations 
against him. 

A.D. 1483. Charles VIII. suc- 
ceeds his father Louis XI. , 
and 
A minority ; but Francebeing 
now settled the consolidation of 
her dominions is com.pleted in a 
few years by the annexation of 
Brittany. 



Edward IV. deposes Henry VI. 



A military king displaces 
one too weak to rule, but holds 
the throne insecurely, and is 
temporarily displaced himself. 

Edward V. succeeds his father 
Edward IV. 

A minority ; but it does not 
last three months. Richard III. 
usurps the crowTi ; but even his 
reign of t>Tanny and violence 
only lasts two years, and 
Henry VII., who succeeds him, 
is for a long time troubled with 
rebellions. 

7. Of all the great feudal lords of France the Dukes of 
Burgundy were by far the most powerful. The duchy 
itself was one of the richest parts of France, but the 
Dukes also possessed Franche Comte — 'the Free 
County ' of Burgundy, which they held of the Empire and 
not of the French crown ; and to these possessions had 
been added^ ever since 1384, some of the most flourishing 



232 General View of Ettropean History, ch. xi. 

provinces of the Netherlands, which were acquired by 
Duke Phihp the Bold in right of his wife, Margaret, 
daughter of the Count of Flanders. These provinces, 
full of populous towns such as Ghent, Bruges, and Ant- 
werp, seats of the largest commerce and manufactures in 
the world, were likewise held of the empire. Hence the 
Dukes of Burgundy became so exceedingly powerful, that 
instead of being subject to the kings of France, they at 
times held those kings in practical subjection to themselves. 
But after the death of Charles the Bold, Louis XI. 
seized upon the Duchy and even the Franche Comte, which 
he succeeded in uniting to the French crown. The rest 
of the dominions of the House of Burgundy were conveyed 
to the Archduke Maximilian, son of the Emperor 
Frederic HI. by his marriage with Charles the Bold's 
daughter ; so that the Netherlands came into the posses- 
sion of the House of Austria, an ambitious and grasping 
family, in whom the empire itself ultimately became here- 
ditary, and with it under Charles V., in the sixteenth 
century, was joined the sovereignty of Spain. 

8. The Spanish peninsula at the beginning of the fif- 
teenth century was divided into the four Christian king- 
doms of Castile, Arragon, Navarre, and Portugal, besides 
c • the Moorish kinprdom of Granada. The dif- 

bpain o 

becomes ferent kings had wars among each other, and 

a^unftld^'' sometimes disputes with regard to the suc- 
kingdom. cession at home. But in 1458, John II., King 
of Navarre, succeeded to the crown of Arragon, and on 
his death in 1479 he was succeeded by his son Ferdinand, 
who with his wife Isabella, the heiress of Castile, had 
already been proclaimed joint sovereign of that country. 
In this manner, the three Christian kingdoms of Spain 
would have been united ; but after the death of King 
John, Navarre became again a separate kingdom, and 



Spain — Italy. 233 

owing to French interest was kept so for another century. 
Ferdinand and Isabella^ however, united Arragon and 
Castile, turned their arms against the Moors, conquered 
Granada, and became masters of nearly the whole penin- 
sula except Portugal. That country, which has maintained 
its independence to this day, became great in another way 
— by maritime expeditions. Alfonso V. made , , . . 

JNlaritime 

several descents upon the coast of Africa, enterprise of 
conquered Ceuta, Tangier, and other places. Portugal. 
Portuguese enterprise discovered the island of Madeira 
in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and afterwards 
the Azores ; then gradually explored the western coast of 
Africa by Cape Bojador and Cape Verd, until, in 1497, 
Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope and 
made his way to India. The discovery of the New 
World by Columbus in 1492 was unquestionably stimu- 
lated by the knowledge of wdiat the Portuguese had done 
before him. 

9. But while the western kingdoms all passed through a 
period of weakness and became stronger, the states situ- 
ated in the centre of Europe remained in the old confu- 
sion, and in the East Christianity was actually receding 
before the armies of the Turk. Italy was y^- , , 
parcelled out into small states. In the north state of 
there was the dukedom of Milan and the re- ■^^^^^'' 
publics of Venice, Genoa, and Florence, besides some 
minor principalities. In the centre were the States of the 
Church, of which the Pope was sovereign. In the south 
were the two separate kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. 
The principalities in the north belonged to the empire, 
the centre of Italy was governed by the Church, the 
south was a bone of contention between foreign princes. 
Milan was erected into a dukedom by the 
Emperor Wenceslaus in 1395. It had long 
been under the dominion of the Visconti^ who then be- 



234 General View of EtLvopcan History, ch. xi. 

came its dukes — a family noted for deeds of violence and 
cruelty. But on the death of Philip Maria Visconti in 
1445 the dukedom was claimed by his son-in-law Fran- 
cesco Sforza, who, after some fighting obtained it, and 
became the head of another line. This Francesco, who- 
was the most noted soldier of his day, had fought by 
turns in the service of Visconti, the Pope, and the 
Venetians, and, generally speaking, had taken part in all 
the Italian wars of his time, sometimes on one side and 
sometimes on the opposite. He had fought against Pope 
Eugenius IV. in the name of the Council of Bale till the 
prudent pontiff turned him into a friend by making him 
gonfalonier, or standard-bearer of the Church. He had 
been out of favour with the Duke of Milan, but the duke 
found the need of his assistance, appointed him captain- 
general of his army, and gave him his daughter in mar- 
riage. After the duke's death the Milanese wished ta 
form themselves into a republic like several of the neigh- 
bouring states ; but Sforza formed a league with his old 
enemies the Venetians, laid siege to the city, and forced 
it to surrender for fear of starvation. He was then pro- 
claimed duke, and his alliance was sought, not only by 
the princes of Italy, but by Louis XI. of France and by 
the King of Arragon. His sons and grandsons were 
dukes after him, but scarcely sustained his greatness,. 
and in the last year of the century the Duke Ludovico- 
Maria Sforza was taken prisoner and his duchy seized by 
Louis XII. of France. 

10. In Naples, as we have seen, the House of Anjou 
disputed the throne for some time with the family of Du- 
^^ , razzo. Afterwards the Kings of Arragon, who- 

Naples, o / 

ruled in Sicily, laid claim to Naples also, and 
the House of Anjou was unable to vindicate its preten- 
sions against them. King Rene at first attempted to 
make good his claims, but was soon driven out and left 



Italy, 23 s 

with a barren title. A bastard branch of the royal family 
of Arragon then for some time succeeded, but in the end 
this kingdom, as well as Sicily, came into the hands of 
Ferdinand the Catholic. Thus ultimately the greater 
part of Italy fell under the power either of France 
or Spain, and so it continued for a long time after- 
wards. 

11. The two maritime republics of Genoa and Venice 
did little to avert this result. The former, a prey to civil 
dissensions, submitted, in the end of the four- 
teenth centur}^, to France, and never completely 
regained its independence till 1528. Its territory on the 
mainland was but a narrow fringe along the coast, but it 
possessed the island of Corsica, and in the Grecian Archi- 
pelago the island of Scio. It had also made Cyprus tribu- 
tary and colonised the Crimea and other settlements on the 
Black Sea. But the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which 
the Genoese, of all European powers, made the greatest 
efforts to prevent, deprived them of their colonies on the 
Black Sea and thereby crippled their commerce. Their 
rivals the Venetians also suffered from the ad- ,. . 

. , Venice. 

vance of the Turks m Greece and on the 
shores of the Adriatic. Venice, however, did not suc- 
cumb, as Genoa did, to any other great European power, 
and she was so formidable in the year 1508 that France, 
Spain, and Germany combined together in the league 
of Cambray to humble her. 

12. Of the history of the Popes we have already said 
so much that a very few words may suffice to ^, ^ 

,,. / -. r The Popes., 

complete it. ue have seen how even alter 
the papal see was brought back from Avignon to Rome 
the French party were strong enough to maintain a series 
of Antipopes at Avignon until the schism was terminated 
by the proceedings of the Council of Constance. But 



2^6 General Viezv of EiL7'opean History, ch. xr. 

factions prevailed at Rome, and Pope Eugenius IV. took 
part with the Orsini family against the Colonnas. He 
also came into collision with the Council of Bale, which 
was assembled in 143 1 to promote a union of the Greek 
Church with the Roman. Eugenius sought to dissolve 
this council, but the council, maintaining the principle 
asserted by the previous council of Constance, declared 
itself superior to the Pope and ultimately deposed him 
and set up -Amadeus Duke of Savoy in his place as 
Pope Felix V. Eugenius, however, convoked another 
council at Ferrara, which he afterwards removed to Flo- 
rence, and therein pronounced the council of Bale hereti- 
cal and the Antipope Felix a schismatic. Fehx, indeed, 
was only recognised in Hungary and a few of the minor 
European states, and after the death of Eugenius he was 
persuaded to resign. After this there is little that is 
remarkable in the history of the papacy for some time, 
except that in 1458 a great scholar and traveller, ^neas 
Sylvius Piccolomini, was made Pope by the name of 
Pius n., who, like all the other popes of this period made 
great but ineffectual efforts to unite Europe against the 
Turks. The princes of Europe were engrossed with 
their own affairs, and the authority of the Holy See was 
no longer what it had been before the popes took up 
their abode at Avignon. 

13. We have already spoken of the conquests of the 
Sultan Bajazet, of the great battle of Nicopohs in which 
^, ^ , he defeated the flower of European chivalry, 

The lurks. , . , . ^ , , . ^_. , 

and of his final overthrow by Tmiour the 
Tartar. This saved for a while from extinction the old 
Eastern Empire, which had continued from the days of 
Constantino, and Solyman I., the son of Bajazet, re- 
covered the greater part of Asia from Tamerlane by 
ceding to the Emperor Manuel the conquests of his 
father in Europe. But his successors renewed their 



Tlic Turks. 237 

aggressions on Christendom, which would have been 
still more effective but for family quarrels among the 
Ottoman princes themselves. The armies of Amurath II. 
were defeated when they invaded Hungar}' by Johannes 
Coi-\^inus Hunniades. Wayv/ode of Transylvania. The 
Prince of Albania at the same time threw off the yoke and 
succeeded in maintaining for three and twenty years the 
independence of his country. The name of this prince 
was George Castriot, but he is better known in history 
by that of Scanderbeg — meaning in Turkish the Great 
Alexander — which was given him in compliment to his 
militar\' genius. He certainly did not a little while he 
lived to divert the forces of the Turk from Europe gene- 
rally. Yet in the year 1453 ^lahomet 11. took by assault 
Constantinople, and the Eastern Empire came to an end. 
In a few years more he took Athens, Thebes, and 
Corinth, and conquered the ]\Iorea. Finally, after the 
death of Scanderbeg he made himself master of Albania 
and Xegropont, invaded Croatia, and sent a fleet across 
the Adriatic which surprised Otranto. Italy and Europe 
generally heard of his doings with terror. 

14. Of all European kingdoms Hungary was most 
exposed to this in^-ader,and Hungar\' had not unfrequently 
troubles of its own, in the nature of a disputed succession, 
to encourage his audacity. The crowns of 
Hungar}' and of Bohemia were united with j^nd 
the Empire of Germany under Sigismund, of Bohemia. 
whose contests both with the Turks and with the Hussites 
we have already spoken ; but a party in each of these 
countries sought rather to promote a union with Poland. 
After the death of Sigismund, Albert of Austria, who had 
married his daughter Elizabeth, succeeded to the throne 
of both kingdoms and became emperor as well ; but he 
died within two years. At the moment of his death he 
was without an heir, but his queen, Ehzabeth, was with 



238 Geiin-al Viezv of European History, ch. xi. 

child and gave birth to a son who was called Ladislaus 
the Posthumous, and succeeded to the throne of Bohe- 
mia. The Hungarians, however, offered their crown to 
another Ladislaus, the King of Poland, with whom 
Elizabeth, so long as she lived, in vain attempted to dis- 
pute the succession on her son's behalf. Under this 
Polish king and the brave general John Hunniades, the 
Hungarians succeeded for some time ih repelling the 
Turks; but being incited by the Pope to violate a truce Vvith 
the enemy, the King met with a great defeat, and perished 
in battle near Varna. After his death Hunniades was 
made Regent for Ladislaus the Posthumous, who was 
still a minor, and invaded the dominions of the Emperor 
Frederic HL to make him deliver up the young prince, 
who had been placed under his protection. Young 
Ladislaus was restored, but those by whom he was sur- 
rounded caused Hunniades to be dismissed from the 
regency, and some years after goaded the hero's sons 
into a conspiracy which cost the eldest his life. The 
people, however, were indignant, and on the death of 
Ladislaus raised Mathias Comnus, the second son of 
Hunniades, to the throne. Like his father, he was a 
brave warrior, and he regained from the Turks the strong 
tov/n of Jaicza in Bosnia. But unfortunately the Turks 
were not his only enemy, and he was compelled to make 
war by turns against the King of Bohemia, the King of 
Poland, and the Emperor ; and although a king of very 
noble qualities and very successful in all his campaigns, 
it was perhaps a happiness for his country that he left no 
son to continue his line in the face of so many adver- 
saries. The crown of Hungary was again united with 
that of Bohemia, and in the following century both 
ciowns came to the House of Austria. 

15. The kingdom of Poland had long been exposed to 
attack from another set of infidels — the hordes inhabiting 



Germany, 239 

Lithuania. But in 1386, the Princess Hedwig having suc- 
ceeded to the crown, took for her husband ^ , ^ 

- _ . , . ,. . Poland. 

Jagellon, Grand Duke of Lithuania,on condition 
that he would be baptized. This act was followed by the 
conversion of the Lithuanians generally. Jagellon be- 
came King of Poland by the name of Ladislaus V., and 
the country was no longer exposed to pagan inroads ; 
but he and his successors had fierce wars with the 
Teutonic knights of Prussia. 

16. Germany had been for centuries under the rule 
of the emperors — successors of Charlemagne, who was 
considered to have revived the old empire of The German 
Rome. Theoretically, the Emperor vras in Empire, 
temporal matters what the Pope was in spiritual — the 
head of all western Europe, or rather of the world. But 
these proud pretensions had never been justified by facts 
since the days of Charlemagne himself. For a long time 
the empire had been united with the old kingdom of 
Germany, and the Emperor had been elected by a diet 
of German princes. He commonly received three crowns 
in succession — first a silver crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
which was the crown of Germany ; afterwards what is 
called the iron crown of Lombardy at Milan (it is of 
silver but has a circle of iron Vv^ithin it) ; and finally 
the golden crown of empire at Rome. This last crown 
was placed upon his head by the Pope, and until he 
received it he was not fully entitled to the name of 
emperor. Till then he was only called King of the 
Romans. For a long time the emperors had asserted 
their dominion over Italy, but nov/ this was little more 
than a tradition. Even over Germany their rule was no 
longer what it had once been. The revenues attached 
to the imperial dignity were totally inadequate, and the 
electors were fain to offer it to foreign princes able to 
support the burden. The German princes cared little for 



240 General Vieiv of European History, ch. xi. 

their sovereign ; and the Emperor himself cared more for 
his own patrimony than for the interests of Germany. 
Wenceslaus, who was King of Bohemia as well as Emperor, 
seldom visited the rest of his dominions, and was de- 
posed in 1400, the year after his brother-in-law Richard 
II. was deposed in England. Sigismund, the brother of 
Wenceslaus, was a more active ruler, but even he cared 
more for Hungary than for Germany. Still more indif- 
ferent to the affairs of the empire was Frederic III., who 
was elected Emperor in 1440, and who made it his princi- 
pal aim to advance the interests of the House of Austria. 
He created the duchy of Austria into an archduchy, 
married his son Maximilian to Mary, the rich heiress of 
Burgundy, and got him elected King of the Romans 
during his own lifetime, so as to ensure his succession to 
the empire after his death. The policy which he thus 
initiated was continued by Maximilian and his other 
descendants. The empire was preserved in the posses- 
sion of the family, and the fortunes of the House of 
Austria were continually improved by politic marriages. 
But Germany became more and more disunited, each 
of her princes being virtually supreme in his own 
dominions. 



CHAPTER XII. 
CONCLUSION. 

T. The fifteenth century was not an age of really great 
men. Amid schisms in the Church, wars, rebellions, and dis- 
The fif- puted successions in every kingdom of Europe, 

teenth cen- it scems to havc been impossible for any mind 
ageVf^great to realise to itself one grand idea, to work out 
^^^' one great work, or to set forth one great 

thought. The best minds of the age looked back upon 



Conclttsio7i, 241 

the past and regretted the chivalry that was passing 
away. Order was the one great need of the time, and as 
yet men could see no order except of a kind already past 
recovery, which they were vainly endeavouring to restore. 
So for the peace of the Church they burned heretics and 
put witches to open penance, while, adhering to the tra- 
ditions of a moribund chivalry, they plunged Europe into 
war and anarchy. The one direction in which there was 
a visible movement in men's minds was in a Revival of 
revival of ancient learning. Scholars were letters, 
recovering lost literature to the world, and the classic 
writers of ancient Rome were studied and imitated in a 
way they had not been before, Greek, too, began to 
engage more attention in Europe after the fall of Con- 
stantinople ; for refugees carried the language and 
the literature into Italy and elsewhere. The art of 
printing, first used in Germany about the year 1440, and 
brought into England by Caxton in 1474, helped to 
multiply copies of the best ancient authors. 

2. In England, after the days of Gower and Chaucer we 
had very little literature that deserved the name. The 
principal poet of the succeeding age was John 
Lydgate, a monk of Bury, whose small lyric 
effusions, though not altogether contemptible, scarcely 
rank above mediocrity. It is remarkable, however, that 
two foreign princes — James I. of Scotland and james i. 
Charles Duke of Orleans — each of whom was ^^^^^if^^ 
for many years detained a prisoner in England, Orleans, 
each contributed, to his native literature poetry that was 
far from commonplace. 

3. In religion men testified what was going on beneath 
the surface rather by acts than by words. Men who felt 
more deeply than their neighbours some . 
neglected phase of Christianity drifted away 

from the authority of the Church. There were the 

R 



242 Conclusio7i. ch. xii. 

Flagellants in Italy, the Lollards in England^ the Huss- 
ites in Bohemia. But their zeal was found to be incom- 
patible even with civil peace, and they were met by a 
spirit of persecution, in which it is to be lamented that 
some of the noblest minds of the day concurred. Such 
was John Gerson at the Council of Constance, 

Gerson. , , . . ^ . . 

— the man who m defiance of danger tore to 
rags all the miserable special pleadings by which the 
creatures of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, sought 
to justify or extenuate the murder of his rival Orleans, — 
even he, so bold and upright in defence of pubHc morals, 
took the lead in the persecution of Huss and Jerome of 
Prague. A quieter mind was that of Thom^as a Kempis, 
Thomas a to whom, as it is generally believed, the world 
Kempis. J5 indebted for the exquisitely beautiful book, 

still so popular, upon the Imitation of Christ. Nothing 
can excel it as an exposition of that pure and peaceful 
devotion for which monasticism still offered a safe asylum 
amid the perverseness and errors of the time. Outside the 
cloister zeal was sure to be persecuted, even if it endea- 
voured to vindicate authority. Such was the fate of Regi- 
Reginald ^ald Pecock, Bishop of Chichester, a man not 
Pecock. 2g5g remarkable for his vigour of intellect than 

for his love of toleration, who wrote a number of treatises 
in English in defence of the Church against the Lollards. 
His object was to win over heretics by reason instead ot 
by the fires of persecution. His arguments generally are 
remarkably clear and lucid, tending to show that the 
Lollard position was founded upon an undue deference 
to the mere letter of Scripture, and that the Bible wa*^ 
not given us to supersede the use of our natural reason. 
But this mode of treatment satisfied no one. During the 
short lull in the civil war in 1457 — not long before the 
procession of the reconciled leaders to St. Paul's — 
Bishop Pecock was accused of heresy, forced to recant 



Conclusion. 243 

for fear of martyrdom, and deprived of his bishopric. 
The Church dechned to be defended in the spirit of 
toleration. 

4. Thus whatever was noble was distressed and perse- 
cuted. Commerce and money-getting went on, and the 
spirits of men, broken by invariable disap- Commerce 
pointment when they attempted anything ^^ "winter 
higher, became generally sordid and merce- rupted. 
nary. Kings grasped at territory instead of money, but in 
England they soonest tired of the game, and even they, 
in the end, joined in the general pursuit of wealth in pre- 
ference to honour or reputation. Edward IV. ^^. 

nrst set the example of ^ trarnckmg m war traffic in 
which Lord Bacon notes as a feature of the ^'^^' 
policy of Henry VII. Both these kings raised great 
supplies from their own subjects, and then accepted 
money from the enemy to forbear fighting. 

5. But from the commercial enterprise of the day arose 
those discoveries which in the end, perhaps, had most 
influence in the formation of a new era. New New dis- 
coasts, new seas, new islands, and in the end jead^tcTa 

a complete New World, were successively re- new era. 
vealed. The thoughts of men were expanded, their 
imaginations fired with new ideas. Old philosophies 
insensibly passed away as the ambition, the enterprise, 
and the avarice of a new generation found channels 
which had been hitherto unknown. The world, even the 
material world, was found to be much larger than had 
been supposed. As for the world unseen, w^as it likely 
that popes and councils had taken the true measure of 
that "1 



INDEX. 



ABE 

A BERYSTWITH, castle of, 76 
Jrx. Adamites in Bohemia, 122 
^neas Sylvius, 236 
Agincourt, battle of, 98-9 
Albania, 237 
Albany, Duke of, brother of Robert 

III. of Scotland, 69, 80-1, 103, no, 

126 

— Alexander, Duke of, brother of 
James III., 199 

Albemarle, Duke of (see Rutland, 

Edward. Earl of) 
Aleppo, 71 

Alexander V., Pope, 82, 1 14-15 
Alnwick Castle, 169, 171 
Angora, battle of, 71 
Anjou, 142, 145 

— Louis, Duke of, 115 

Anne of Bohemia, queen of Richard 

11. , 19, 36, 39 
Aquinas, Thomas, 62 
Aquitaine, 9 
Arc, Joan of (see Joan) 
Armagnac, Count of, 100, 102, 104-5 
Armagnacs, party of the, 85 
Arras, peace conferences at, 137 

— treaty of, 200 
Artevelde, James van, 19 

— Philip van, 20 

Arundel, Earl of, 30, 39, 40, 64 
Arundel, Thomas, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, 40, 44, 57, 79 
Astley, Sir John, 171 
Audley, Lord, 159 
Avignon, 6, u, 114 



BACON, Roger, 62 
Badby, Thomas, 83 
Bagdad, 71 



BOH 

Bagot, Sir William, 51 

Bajazet, the sultan, 70-2 

Balle, John, 13 

Bamborough Castle, 169, 170 

Banaster, Ralph, 218 

Bar, Duke of, 93 

Earbason, governor of Melun, 109 

Bardolf, Lord, 77-8 

Bamet, battle of, 186 

Basle, council of, 122 

Bastille, the, at Paris, 105 

Bavaria, Lewis of, son of the Emperor 
Rupert, 79 

— Ernest, Duke of, 93 

Bayonne, i, 153 

Beaufort family, 215-16 

Beaufort, Henry, Bishop of Win- 
chester, afterwards Cardinal, 112, 
126, 132, 134-6, 138 

Beaufort, Lady Jane, 126 

Beaufort, Margaret, Countess of Rich- 
mond, daughter of the Duke of 
Somerset, 148, 214-15, 219 

Beauge, battle of, no 

Beaugency, in 

Bedford, John, Duke of, 100, 103, 112 ; 
Regent of France, 125-8, 131-4, 137 

Bedford, Duchess of, 172 

Benedict XIII., Pope, 100, 114, T17 

Berwick, 168, 199 

Bible, the, translated by Wycliffe, 60, 
62 

Blackheath, 13, 69, 153 

Black Prince (see Edward) 

Blanche, daughter of Henry IV. , 7 

Blank charters issued by Richard II., 

^49 

Bloreheath, battle of, 159 

Blount, Sir Jasper, 222 

Bohemia, 116, 120-3, ^3^ 



246 



Index. 



BOH 



DOU 



Bohun, Mary de, first wife of Henry 

IV., 79 
Bolingbroke, Roger, 139 
Bona of Savoy, 174 
Bondmen stir up rebellion, 11, 13 
Bordeaux, i, 2, 153 
Borough, Sir Thomas a, 179 
Bosworth, battle of, 224-6 
Bourbon, Duke of, 99 
Bourchier, Thomas, Archbishop of 

Canterbury, 157, 161 
Bracciolini, Poggio, 120 
Brackenbury, Sir Robert, 213 
Brambre, Sir Nicholas, 33 
Bretigni, treaty of, 94, 106 
Brittany, 10, 125, 146 
Buchan, Earl of, no 
Buckingham, Henry, Duke of, 202-4, 

208, 212, 214-18 
Burgundian and Armagnac factions in 

France, 85 
Burgundy, Dukes of, 231-2 

— John the Fearless, Duke of, 85, 
93-5, 104, 106-7 

— Philip, Duke of, 108-9, 112, 125, 
134, 170, 177 

— Charles, Duke of (see Charles the 
Bold) 

— the Bastard of, 177 
Burley, Sir Simon, 36 

Bury St. Edmund's, parliament at, 143 
Bury, prior of, 16 
Bushy, Sir John, 51-2 



CABOCHIANS in Paris, 92-3 
Cade, Jack, his rebellion, 149-51 

Calais, I, 2, 20, 31, 41, 52, loi, 138, 
153, 161, 169 

Calixtines, a Bohemian sect, 122 

Cambridge, Richard, Earl of, 95-6 

Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, 60 

Carlisle, besieged, 168 

Carlisle, Bishop of, 55-6 

Carmarthen Castle, 76 

Castillon, siege of, 154-5 

Castriot, George, 237 

Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. of 
France, 94, 106 ; married to Henry 
v., 108 ; crowned, 109 ; marries Sir 
Owen Tudor after Henry's death, 
165 

Cecily, daughter of Edward IV., 198 

Chalons, 131 

Charite, la, on the Loire, in 

Charles V. of France, 2 

Charles VI., 20; prepares to invade 



England, 26 ; his daughter married 

to Richard II., 39; he becomes 

insane, 85 ; his death, 125 
Charles VII., as dauphin, 101-2, 104-5, 

125-9 ' crowned at Rheims, 131 ; as 

king, 143 
Charles VIII., 220 
Charles of Blois, 10 
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy ; 

as Count of Charolois, 175-6 ; as 

Duke, 177, 183-5, 193-5 
Charolois, Count of {see Charles) 
Chartres, 134 

Chatel, Tannegui du, 105-7 
Chaucer, Geoff., poet, 60-1 
Cherbourg, 147 
Chester, 55 

Cheyney, Sir John, 226 
Chichester, Bishop of, confessor to 

Richard II., 33, 36 
Church, possessions of the, 7, 84 
Clarence, Duke of {see Lionel) 
Clarence, Thomas, Duke of, brother 

of Henry V., no 
Clarence, George, Duke of, brother of 

Edward IV., 168, 178, 180-5, i95-7> 

201 
Clarendon, Sir Roger, 73 
Clement VII., anti-pope, 11, 20, 114 
Clifford, Lord, 164, 167 
Cobham, Eleanor, Duchess of Glou- 
cester, 139-40 
Cobham, Lord {see Oldcastle) 
Conflans, treaty of, 175 
Constance, Council of, 99, 113, 116-20 
Constantinople, 70 
Constantinople, Emperor of, 69 
Conway, 54 
Conyers, Sir Will., 178 
Coppini, the legate, 161 
Cosne, siege of, 111 
Coventry, parliament at, 160 
Crevant, siege of, 126 
Crowmer, sheriff of Kent, 150 



DAMASCUS, 71 
Dartford, 153 
Delhi, 71 

Derby, Henry, Earl oi{see Henr^'') 
Dighton, John, 213 
Doncaster, 50 
Dorset, John Beaufort, Marquis of, 65 

— Thos. Beaufort, Earl of, 100 ; {see 
also Exeter, Duke of) 

— Grey, Marquis of {see Grey) 
Douglas, Earl, 68, 74, 76, 103 



Index, 



247 



DRE 

Dreux, iii 

Dublin, 50 

— Marquis of {see Vere) 
Duns Scotus, 62 
Dunstanborough Castle, 169 
Durazzo, Charles of, 115 
Dymock, SirThos., 179 



ECORCHEURS, 138 
Edinburgh, 22, 68-9, 199 
Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lan- 
caster, 157 
^dward III., 1-4 
Edward IV., as Earl of March, 154, 

160, 164 ; declared king, 166 ; his 

reign, 167-201 
Edward V., his birth, 190 ; his reign, 

201-9 ; his murder, 212, 213 
Edward the Black Prince, 2-4 
Edward, Prince of Wales, son of 

Henry VI., 155, 185, 187 
Edward, Prince of Wales, son of 

Richard III., 219 
Eg>Tt, 71 
Elizabeth, Queen of Edward IV. {see 

Woodville) 
Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., 

198, 200. 214, 220-1 
Ely, Bishop of {see Morton) 
Eric IX., King of Denmark, 79 
Euphrates, the river, 71 
Exeter, Duke of (John Holland), 53-5, 

65 ; degraded to the rank of Earl of 

Huntingdon, 65 ; conspires against 

Henry IV., 66 
Exeter, Duke of (Thomas Beaufort, 

previously Earl Dorset), 103, 112 
Exeter, Duke of (Henry Holland), 

159, 190 
Exeter, Duchess of, sister of Edward 

IV., 218 
Eye, the Witch of, 139, 140 



FALCONBRIDGE, Lord, 167 
Falconbridge, the Bastard, 188-9 
Fastolf, Sir John, 127 
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 211, 

233 
Ferrybridge, battle of, 167 
Fitzhugh, Lord, 184 
Fitzwalter, Lords, 65, 167 
Flanders, crusade of the Bishop of 

Norwich in, 19-21 
Flanders, Count Louis II. of, 20 
Flint Castle, 54-5 



HEN 



Fogge, Sir John, 211 
Forest, Miles, 213 
Fougereb taken, 146 
Foul Raid, the, 103 
France, i, 26, 229-231 
France, Isle of, 106 
Frederic, III., Emperor, 194 



GASCONY, 2, 6, 152, 154-5 
Gaunt, John of (.y^^ John) 
Genoa, 235 
Georgia, 71 
Germany, 239 
Gerson, John, 242 

Glendower, Owen, rebellion of, 73-7 
Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of, son of 

Edward III., 23, 25, 28, 30-33, 36- 

40 ; his murder, 41-2 ; the judgment 

upon him reversed, 64 
Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of, 

brother of Henry V., 110, 112, 124 ; 

protector of England, 125-6, 132, 

134-144 
Gloucester, Richard, Duke of {see 

Richard III.) 
Gloucester, Spenser, Earl of {see 

Spenser) 
Good Parliament, the, 3 
Gower, John, poet, 60-2 
Granson, battle of, 190 
Gravelines, in Flanders, 21 
Gray, Sir Ralph, 170 
Green, John, 213 
Green, Sir Henry, 51-2 
Gregory XL, Pope, 11 
Gregory XII., Pope, 82, 100, 114,117 
Grey of Ruthin, Lord, 73-4 
Grey, Lord Richard, 202-3, 207 
Grey, Sir John, 172 
Grey, Sir Thos., 95 
Grey, Thomas, afterwards Marquis of 

Dorset, 173, 203, 217-18, 221 
Guienne and Gascony, 152, 154 
Guienne, Louis, Duke of, dauphin, 93 



HALES, Sir Robert, 14, 15 
Hammes Castle, 222 
Harfleur, siege of, 96 
Harlech Castle, in Wales, 169 
Hastings, 5 

Hastings, Lord, 169, 184, 201-2, 204-7 
Hedgeley Moor, battle of, 171 
Henry of Trastamara, 8, 9 
Henry, Earl of Derby, afterwards 
Henry t v., 30, 33, 36, 42; created 



248 



Index. 



HEN 



MAN 



Duke of Hereford, 43, 44, 46 ; 
banished, 47-8 ; his return, 50-7 ; his 
reig-n as king, 64-86 

Henr>' V., his early life, 52 ; as Prince 
of Wales, 76, 83 ; his character, 86-8 ; 
his reign, 88-113 

Henry VL, birth of, iii ; his reign, 
123-166 ; his acts after being de- 
posed, 1 67-1 7 1 ; restored, 184 ; again 
in Edward's power, 185, 187 ; his 
murder, 189 

Henry VII. {^see Richmond, Henry, 
Earl of) 

Herbert, Lord, Earl of Pembroke, 178 

— Sir Richard, 178-9 

Herrings, battle of, 127 

Hexham, battle of, 171 

Holy Land, 69 

Homildon Hill, battle of, 74 

Horebites, a Bohemian sect, 122 

Hotspur {see Percy, Henrj-) 

Hungary-, 237 

Himniades, Johannes Corvinus, 237 

Huss, John, 100, 116, 118 

Hussites, the, 120-3, ^3^ 



TXDIA, 71 

X. Innocent VII., 82 

Ireland, Duke oi {see Vere) 

Ireland, Richard II. goes to, 49 

Isabel of Bavaria, queen of Charles 

VI. of France, 85, 102, 104, 106, 

108 
Isabella of France, second queen of 

Richard II., 39, 67 
Italy, 233-6 



TAGELLON, King of Poland, 121, 

J 239 ^ ^ 

James I. of Scotland, when pnnce, is 

captured by the English, 81 ; with 

Henr>' V. in France, no; liberated 

and returns to Scotland, 126 ; his 

-■' poetrj', 241 

James III. of Scotland, 198-9 

Jargeau, capture of, 131 

Jerome of Prague, 1 19-21 

Joan of Arc, 128-134 

Joan of Navarre, queen of Henry IV., 

79 
Joanna, Queen of Naples, 114 
John, King of England, 6 
John XXIII., Pope, 100, 114-6 
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, 2- 

4, 7-10, 12, 14, 22, 25, 41, 49 



John, son of Charles VI. of France, 101 
Jourdemain, Margery, the Witch of 
Eye, 139, 140 

KEMP, Cardinal, 156 
Kempis, Thomas k, 242 
Kent, the Fair Maid of, mother of 

Richard II., 14 
Kent, Earl of {see Surrey, Duke of) 
Kidwelly, Morgan, 223 
Kilkenny, 50 
Knolles, Sir Robert, 16 

LACK-LEARNING Parliament, 
79 

Ladislaus King of Naples and Hun- 
gary, 115 

Lancaster, John, Duke of {see John of 
Gaunt) 

Lancaster, Henr>-, Duke of, 8 

Langland, William, a religious poet, 59 

Langley, 68 

Lauder, 199 

Lawyers particularly hated, 13, 16 

League of the Public Weal, 175 

Leicester, parliament at, 149 ; council 
at, 157 

Liege, massacre of, 194 

Limoges, massacre of, 2 

Limousin, the, 6 

Lincoln, John de la Pole, Earl of, 220 

Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of Ed- 
ward III., 8, 56 

Lithuania, 69 

Litster, John, 17, 18 

Llewelyn of Wales, 73 

Lombardy, 7 

London Bridge, 78 

London, Tower of {see Tower) 

Lorraine, 195 

Lose-coat Field, battle of, 180 

Louis, Duke of Anjou, King of Naples, 
"5 

Louis XL, King of France, 169, 174-7, 
182, 190-4, 198, 200 

Low Countries {see Flanders) 

Ludlow, 159, 160, 202 

Lutterworth, 119 

Lydgate, John, the poet, 241 

IV /TAINE, in France, 106, 126, 142, 

Mamelukes, 71 

Man, Isle of, 42 

Mandeville, Sir John, the traveller, 64 

Mans, le, 145 



Index, 



249 



MAN 



PAU 



Manuel Palaeologus, Emperor of Con- 
stantinople, 69 

Mar, Earl of, brother of James III. of 
Scotland, 199 

March, Roger Mortimer, Earl of, 49, 

56 

— Ldmund Mortimer, Earl of, son of 
Roger, 56, 75, 77, 95 

— Edward, Earl of ^see Edward IV.) 

— the Scotch Earl of, 68 
Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henry 

VI., 141-2, 155, 157-9, 163, 165-70, 
182, 187, 190 

Margaret, sister of Edward IV., 176-8, 
196 

Martin v., Pope, 104, it8 

Mary of Anjou, Queen of Charles VII., 
141 

Mary of Burgundy, daughter of 
Charles the Bold, 194, 196, 200 

Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, son 
of the Emperor Frederick III., 194, 
200 

Meaux, on the Marne, in 

Melun, 109 

Mercer, John, 9 

Meulan, 106 

Milan, 233 

Mile End, 14 

Milford Haven, 50, 53, 223 

Moleyns, Adam de. Bishop of Chi- 
chester, 147 

Molyneux, Constable of Chester, 32 

Montague, John Nevile, Lord, 168, 
171 ; made Earl of Northumberland, 
173 ; afterwards Marquis Montague, 
183-5 

Montereau, 107, 109 

Montfort, John de, Duke of Brittany, 
10, II 

Montlhery, battle of, 175 

Morat, battle of, 195 

More, Sir Thomas, his History of 
Richard III., 205, 213, 221 

Morley, Lord, 65 

Mortimer, Roger, Earl of March {see 
March) 

Mortimer, Sir Edmund, 74-6 

Mortimer's Cross, battle of, 164 

Morton, John, Bishop of Ely, after- 
wards Cardinal, 204-6, 216-7 

Mountjoy, Lord, 173 

Mowbray, John, Earl Marshal, 77 

Mowbray, Thomas, Earl of Notting- 
ham and Earl Marshal, 30, 33, 39-41 ; 
created Duke of Norfolk, 43, 44, 46 ; 
banished, 47-8 



NANCY, battle of, 195 
Naples, rival kings of, 114, 234 

Narbonne, 118 

Navarrete, battle of, 9 

Netter, Thomas, of Walden, 62 

Neuss, siege of, 191, 194 

Nevill, Alexander, Archbishop of 
York, 31, 33, 34 

Nevill, ^ Ann, second daughter of 
Warwick the King Maker, 182, 195-6 

Nevill, George, Archbishop of York, 
173 

Ne\dll, Isabel, eldest daughter af 
Warwick the King Maker, 178, 196 

Nicopolis, battle of, 70 

Norfolk, John Mowbray, third Duke 
of, 156, 167 

Norfolk, John Howard, Duke of, 225 

Norfolk, Thomas, Duke of {see Mow- 
bray) 

Normandy, 102 

Northampton, battle of, 162 

Northampton, John of, 19 

Northumberland, 169 

Northumberland, Earl of, 50, 54-5, 

74-77 

Northumberland, Henry Percy re- 
stored to the earldom of, 183, 225 

Norwich, Spencer, Bishop of {see 
Spencer) 

Nottingham, council at, 29 

Nottingham, Thomas I^Iowbray, Earl 
o{{see Mowbray) 



OLDCASTLE, Sir John, Lord 
Cobham, 89-92, 103-4 
Orleans, Louis, Duke of, murdered, 85 
— Charles, Duke of, son of the pre- 
ceding, 93, 99, 112, 138-9, 142, 241 
Orleans, siege of, 127-131 
Ormond, Earl of {see Wiltshire) 
Orphanites, a Bohemian sect, 122 
Orsini, Paolo, 82 
Oxford, 6 

Oxford, Earl of {see also Vere) 
Oxford, Earl of, x86, 222 



PALiEOLOGUS, Manuel, Emperor 
of Constantinople, 69 
Paris, 93, 105, 137 
Parliament, the Good, 3 

— the Wonderful, or Merciless, 34-37 

— of Shrewsbury, 43 

— the Lack-learning, 79 
Paul's Cross, 208 



250 



Index. 



PEA 



SHO 



Peasantr>% condition of the, 12 
Pecock, Reginald, Bishop of Chiches- 
ter, 242 
Pembroke, 223 
Pembroke, Jasper Tudor, Earl of, 

164-5, 223 
Pembroke, Lord Herbert, Earl of, 178 
Percy, Henry, called Hotspur, son 
of the Earl of Northumberland, 

74-5 
Percy, Sir Ralph, 170 
Percy, Sir Thos., Earl of Worcester, 

{see Worcester) 
Percy, Sir Thos., 54 
Perrers, Alice, 2, 3 
Persia, 71 

Peter the Cruel of Castile, 8, 9 
Philippa, daughter of Henry IV., 79 
Philipot, John, 5-10 
Picardy, 106 

Piccolomini, /Eneas Sylvius, 236 
Piers Plowman, the Vision of, 60 
Pisa, Council of, 114-15 
Pius XL, Pope, 236 
Plesh}'', castle of, in Essex, 39 
Poggio Bracciolini, 120 
Poitiers, battle of, 2 
Poland, 238-9 
Pole, Michael, de la, 23 {see also 

Suffolk, Earl of) 
Poll tax, 12 
Pomfret Castle, 66 
Pont de I'Arche taken, 146 
Popes, the, 235-6 
Portugal, 233 
Prague, 120-1, 123 
Prague, Jerome of, 119-21 
Procopius the Shaven, 123 
Public Weal, league of the, 175 



RADCOTE BRIDGE, encounter 
at, 32 

Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, 50, 185 

Reading, parliament at, 156 

Religion, state of, 241-2 

Rene, Duke of Anjou and King of 
Naples, 141 

Rene II., Duke of Lorraine, 195 

Rheims, coronation of Charles VII. 
at, 131 

Rhuddlan Castle, 54 

Richard IL, 3, 4, 36, 48, 49; his 
deposition, 56 ; his reign and charac- 
ter, 57-9 ; conspiracy in his favour, 
66 ; his death, 68 ; reported to be 
alive in Scotland, 73, 95, 103 



Richard III., as Duke of Gloucester, 
168, 184, 187-8, 195, 198-9, 201-9 ; 
as king, 210-27 

Richmond, Edmund, Earl of, 165 

Richmond, Henry, Earl of, afterwards 
Henry VII., 214-227 

Rickhill, William, 41 

Rivers, Lord {see Woodville) 

Robert III. of Scotland, 68, 80-1 

Robin of Redesdale's insurrection, 178 

Roche, Count de la, 177 

Rome, 6, II 

Roosebeke, battle of, 20 

Rotherham, Archbishop of York, 204 

Rothesay, David, Duke of, 69, 80 

Rouen, 105, 109, 134, 146 

Roxburgh, 5, 103 

Russia, 71 

Rutland, Edmund, Earl of, son of 
Richard Duke of York, 160, 164 

Rutland, Edward {see Errata), Earl 
of, 39 ; after^vards Duke of Albe- 
marle, 53-4 ; degraded again to the 
earldom, 65 ; conspires against 
Henry IV., 66, 67 

Rye, burned by the French, 5 



ST. ALBAN'S, 16, 51, 56; first 
battle of, 157-8 ; second battle of, 
16576 
St. Giles' Fields, meeting of Lollards 

at, 91 
St. John's Field, 166 
St. Leger, Sir Thos., 218 
Salisbury, John de Montacute, Earl 
of, 53-55, 65-7 

— Thomas de Montacute, Earl of, 
106-7 

— Richard Nevill, Earl of, 153, 157-60, 
164 

Savoy, palace of the, 8, 14 
Sawtre, William, 83 
Say, Lord, 150 

Scales, Anthony, Lord {see Woodville) 
I Scales, Lord, 150 
Scanderbeg, 237 
Scarborough, 10 
Schism, the Great, 11 
Scotland, 22, 68, 19S-9 
Scots, the, 5, 103 
Scotus, Duns, 62 
Scrope, or Scroop, Ric, Archbishop of 

York, 77 
Scrope of Masham, Lord, 95-6 
Shaw, Dr., 208 
Shore, Jane, 206-7, 217 



hidex. 



251 



WIG 



Shrewsbury, Earl of {see Talbot) 

Sigismund, King of Hungary, 70 ; 
afterwards King of the Romans and 
Emperor elect, 99, 121-2 ; and King 
of Bohemia, 121, 123, 237 

Sivas, in Asia Minor, 71 

Sluys, fleet assembled at, 26 

Smithfield, 15, 140, 177 

Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of, 
145-7, 152-4, 156-7 

— Henry Beaufort, Duke of, 159, 160, 
167, 169, 171, 187-8 

Southampton, 95 

Spain, 232 

Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, 17 ; his 
crusade in Flanders, 19-21, 24 

Spenser,Lord, Earl of Gloucester, 65,66 

Stafford, Humphrey, 218 

Stafford, Sir Humphrey, and William, 
150 

Stamford, battle of Losecoat Field, 
near, 180 

Stanley, Lord, 206, 223-5 

Stanley, Sir William, 224-6 

Strange, Geo., Lord, 223-4 

Straw, Jack, 18 

Sudbury, Simon, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 14-15 

Suffolk, Earl of, 17 

Suffolk, Michael de la Pole, Earl of, 
23, 26-29, 33, 35 

Suffolk, William de la Pole, Earl of, 
after^vards Marquis and Duke of, 
127, 131, 141-5 

Surrey, Duke of, 53-5 ; degraded to 
the rank of Earl of Kent, 65 ; con- 
spires against Henry IV., 66 ; be- 
headed, 67 

Surrey, I'hos. Howard, Earl of, 225 



TABORITES, a Bohemian sect, 
122 

Talbot, Lady Eleanor, 209 

Talbot, Lord, afterwards Earl of 
Shrewsbury, 131, 147, 154-5 

Tamerlane, or Timour, the Tartar, 
71-2 

Tannenberg, battle of, 121 

Tartary, 71 

Tewkesbury, battle of, 187 

Timour {see Tamerlane) 

Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester {see Wor- 
cester) 

Tower Hill, 15, 32 

Tower of London, 14, 15, 34, 56, 208, 
212-13 



Towton, battle of, 167 

Treason, laws of, mitigated by Henry 

IV., 65 
Tresilian, Sir Robert, 29, 33, 35 
Trollope, Andrew, 160 
Troyes, 131 
Troyes, treaty of, 108 
Tudor, Sir Owen, 165 
Turks, the, 236-8 
Tyler, Wat, rebellion of, 12-18 
Tyrell, Sir Jas., 213 



u 



RBAN VI., Pope, 11, 114 



VAUGHAN, Thos., 218 
Venice, 235 
Vere, Robert de, Earl of Oxford, 
created Marquis of Dublin and 
Duke of Ireland, 24, 29, 32, 35 
Verneuil, battle of, 126 
Villeneuve, on the Yonne, 11 1 
Vincennes, iii 



WAKEFIELD, battle of, 163 
Wales, 73, 76, 169 
Wales, Joan, Princess of, mother of 

Richard II., 14 
Wales, Princes of {see under Christian 

names) 
Wales, women of, their barbarity, 74 
Walworth, Sir William, 5, 9, 15, 16 
Warwick, Richard Beauchamp, Earl 

of, 137 
Warwick, Thomas Beauchamp, Earl 

of, 30, 39, 40, 42, 64 
Warwick, Richard Nevill, Earl of, 

(the King-Maker), 153, 157-61, 165, 

167, 169, 172-4, 176, 178-86 
— his daughters, Isabel and Anne {see 

Nevill) 
Waterford, 50, 53 

Waynflete, William, Bishop of Win- 
chester, 153, 211 
Welles, Lord, 179, 180 
Welles, Sir Rob., insurrection of, 179, 

180 
Wenceslaus VI. of Bohemia, 19, 

120-1 
Wenlock, Lord, 181 
Westminster, abbot of, 66 
Westmoreland, Earl of, 50, 77 
Wight, Isle of, 5 



252 



Index, 



WIL 



Wiltshire and Ormond, Jas. Butler, 

Earl of, 164-5 
Wiltshire, Scrope, Earl of, 51-2 . 
Winchelsea, 5 
Windsor Castle, 77 
Woodville, Anthony, Lord Scales, 173, 

177 ; becomes Earl Rivers, 180, 184, 

201-3, 207, 220-1 
Woodville, Elizabeth, queen of Edward 

IV., 172, 190, 202, 204, 206-7, 209 
Woodville, Richard, Earl Rivers, 172- 

3, 178-9 
Worcester, John Tiptoft, Earl of, 173, 

181, 184 
Worcester, Thos. Percy, Earl of, 75-6 
Wraw, John, 16, 18 
Wycliffe, John, 5-7, 14 ; his Bible, 60, 

62 
— his doctrines popular in Bohemia, 

116 



Wykeham, William, Bishop of Win- 
chester, 3, 37 {see Errata) 



YORK, 168, in-12 
York, Alex. Nevill, Archbishop 

of, 31. 33, 44 
York, Richard, Duke of, son of 

the Earl of Cambridge, 137-8, 146, 

151-4, 156-64 
York, Edmund, Duke of, son of 

Edward III., 23, 51 
York, Richard, Duke of, son of Edward 

IV., 207, 212-13 
Yorkshire, rebellion in, 77 8 



ZISKA, John, Bohemian leader 
120-2 



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